LECTURES  ON  BIBLICAL  ARCHAEOLOGY 


ALBERT  T.  CLAY 


f 

v 


Division 


YALE  ORIENTAL  SERIES 

RESEARCHES 

VOLUME  XII 


PUBLISHED  ON  THE  EOUNDATION 
ESTABLISHED  IN  MEMORY  OF 
ALEXANDER  KOHUT 


i 


t 


YALE  ORIENTAL  SERIES  *  RESEARCHES  *  VOLUME  XII 


THE  ORIGIN  OF 
BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS 

HEBREW  LEGENDS  IN  BABYLONIA 

AND  ISRAEL 

LECTURES  ON  BIBLICAL  ARCHAEOLOGY 
DELIVERED  AT  THE  LUTHERAN  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY 

MT.  AIRY,  PHILADELPHIA 

/■ 

ALBERT  T.  CLAY 


NEW  HAVEN 

YALE  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

LONDON  •  HUMPHREY  MILFORD  •  OXFORD  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

MDCCCCXXIII 


Gopyeight,  1923,  by 
Yale  University  Press 


THE  ALEXANDER  KOHUT  MEMORIAL  PUBLICATION 

FUND 


The  present  volume  is  the  fourth  work  published  by  the  Yale 
University  Press  on  the  Alexander  Kohut  Memorial  Publication 
Fund.  This  Foundation  was  established  October  13,  1915,  by  a 
gift  to  Yale  University  from  members  of  his  family  for  the  purpose 
of  enabling  scholars  to  publish  texts  and  monographs  in  the  Semitic 
field  of  research. 

The  Reverend  Alexander  Kohut,  Ph.D.  (Leipzig),  a  distinguished 
Oriental  scholar,  in  whose  memory  the  fund  has  been  established, 
was  born  in  Hungary,  April  22,  1842,  of  a  noted  family  of  rabbis. 
When  pastor  of  the  Congregation  Ahavath  Chesed  in  New  York 
City,  he  became  one  of  the  founders  of  the  Jewish  Theological 
Seminary,  and  was  a  professor  in  that  institution  until  his  death. 
He  was  a  noted  pulpit  orator,  able  to  discourse  with  equal  mastery 
in  three  languages.  Among  his  contributions  to  Semitic  learning 
is  the  monumental  work  Aruch  Completum,  an  encyclopaedic 
dictionary  of  the  Talmud,  in  eight  volumes.  Semitic  and  Oriental 
scholars  have  honored  his  memory  by  inscribing  to  him  a  volume 
of  Semitic  Studies  (Berlin  1897). 

Other  Kohut  Memorial  Publication  Funds  have  recently  been 
established  in  Vienna  and  Berlin,  and  at  the  newly-founded  Jewish 
Institute  of  Religion  in  New  York.  An  Alexander  Kohut  Research 
Fellowship  in  Semitics  was  established  at  Yale  by  his  family  in  1919. 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2019  with  funding  from 
Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Library 


https://archive.org/details/originofbiblicalOOclay 


TO  THE  CHERISHED  MEMORY 
OF  MY  LAMENTED  COLLEAGUE  AND  FRIEND 

PROFESSOR  MORRIS  JASTROW,  JR.,  Ph.D.,  LL.D. 

WHO  BY  THE  FRUITFULNESS  OF  HIS  INVESTIGATIONS  AND 
HIS  VALUABLE  CONTRIBUTIONS,  AND  BY  HIS  GENEROUS 
RECOGNITION  OF  THE  ACHIEVEMENTS  OF  OTHERS,  HAS 
RENDERED  PREEMINENT  SERVICE  TO  ORIENTAL  RESEARCH, 
UPON  WHICH  HIS  NAME  HAS  BEEN  INDELIBLY  IMPRESSED 


FOREWORD 


The  first  battery  against  the  prevailing  view  that  the  Hebrews 
had  borrowed  their  religious  traditions  from  Babylonia,  was  opened 
up  in  the  Reinicker  Lectures,  for  1908,  dehvered  at  the  Protestant 
Episcopal  Theological  Seminary,  Alexandria,  Virginia,  resulting  in 
a  publication  entitled  Amurru^the  Home  of  the  Northern  Semites ,  a 
Study  showing  that  the  Religion  and  Culture  of  Israel  are  not  of 
Babylonian  Origin.  After  a  period  of  fifteen  years,  during  which 
time  many  discoveries  bearing  upon  the  subject  have  been  made, 
the  theme  was  again  discussed  in  lectures  delivered  at  the  Lutheran 
Theological  Seminary,  Mt.  Airy,  Philadelphia,  as  offered  here  in 
this  monograph. 

I  had  hoped  before  presenting  my  recent  researches  ofiThe  sub¬ 
ject,  as  well  as  a  review  of  those  made  during  the  past  fifteen  years, 
to  be  able  to  devote  myself  to  the  study  of  certain  other  cuneiform 
texts,  which  I  feel  also  represent  Babylonized  Amorite  or  early 
Hebrew  hterature.  Since,  however,  there  are  now  more  than  suffi¬ 
cient  data  available  to  show  the  complete  baselessness  of  the  con¬ 
tentions  of  Babylonism,  and  also  because  some  scholars  do  not 
seem  to  be  able  to  distinguish  between  efforts  made  to  reconstruct 
the  civihzation '  and  history  of  a  lost  empire  and  the  riding  of  a 
hobby  horse,  it  has  seemed  advisable  to  present  at  this  time  the 
material  that  has  been  assembled. 

When  the  first  assault  was  made  against  fihe  prevailing  under¬ 
standing  that  Israel  had  borrowed  its  traditions  from  Babylonia, 
as  far  as  I  know,  all  Assyriologists,  and  Biblical  scholars  generally, 
had  accepted  this  point  of  view.  It  is  this  that  has  been  dubbed 
Babylonism.^’  The  term  ^^Sumerism”  refers  to  the  view  of  some 
Assyriologists,  who  believe  in  the  Sumerian  origin  of  the  traditions, 
which  have  been  handed  down  by  the  Babylonians  and  Israel. 

(9) 


10 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


Pan-Babylonism,  as  developed  by  several  German  scholars,  who 
have  endeavored  to  show  that  even  parts  of  the  New  Testament 
have  evolved  from  the  circle  of  Babylonian  mythology,  when  even 
Marduk  is  transformed  into  Christ,  is  only  briefly  touched  upon; 
for  if  early  Israel  did  not  borrow  its  religious  traditions  from 
Babylonia,  it  seems  unreasonable  to  suppose  that  this  was  done  by 
the  Christian  Jew. 

Although  the  thesis  is  quite  revolutionary,  I  feel  that  I  have 
previously  given  sufficient  evidence  to  prove  that  it  is  correct. 
Certain  scholars,  however,  who  have  resisted  it,  have  systematically 
discussed  details,  or  extraneous  suggestions,  and  have  avoided 
facing  the  real  issue.  In  presenting  here  the  results  of  my  inves¬ 
tigations,  as  they  are  to-day,  it  has  seemed  necessary  to  repro¬ 
duce  the  views  of  many  friends,  with  which  I  totally  disagree,  and 
upon  which  the  theories  rest.  It  is  my  hope  that  all  will  fully 
realize  that  in  doing  so  I  have  had  but  one  thought  in  mind,  and 
that  is  to  present  the  facts  and  theories  upon  which  Babylonism 
and  Sumerism  are  based,  as  well  as  reasons  why  they  should  be 
abandoned,  in  such  a  way  that  what  is  offered  the  Biblical  student 
will  carry  conviction.  Having  taken  a  stand  against  the  prevailing 
view  that  the  Hebrew  traditions  originated  in  Babylonia,  I  should 
regard  it  a  mistake  not  to  make  an  attempt  to  bring  the  issue 
to  a  conclusion,  since  I  feel  that  sufficient  material  is  at  hand  to 
effect  this. 

It  was  fully  expected  that  the  titles  of  the  recent  monographs 
would  not  meet  with  the  approval  of  certain  scholars  any  more 
than  did  the  title  of  the  first  contribution.  As  an  illustration  of 
this  opposition  let  me  refer  here  to  a  criticism  that  has  been  offered 
by  a  scholar  and  friend.  In  his  review  of  The  Empire  of  the 
AmoriteSj  which  on  the  whole  was  gratifying  (see  Chapter  I),  the 
following  lines  occur:  “Clay  argues  that  there  was  a  ‘great  empire 
of  the  Amorites^  in  which  he  gives  powers  of  great  magnitude  to 


FOEEWORD. 


11 


‘mighty  Amorite  rulers/  and  builds  for  them  an  ‘imperial  city  .  .  . 
which  was  powerful  enough  to  rule  the  land  from  the  Mediterranean 
to  Babylonia/  All  this  and  much  more  is  based  on  fragmentary 
evidence  piled  high  and  even  higher  on  names  of  places,  names  of 
deities,  or  fugitive  allusions  in  Babylonian  and  Assyrian  texts  all 
of  periods  far  later  than  the  ‘3rd,  4th,  and  5th  millenniums^  in 
which  this  supposed  and  subjective  empire  is  presumed  to  have 
held  sway.  One  dislikes  intensely  to  say  it,  but  the  book  presents 
no  objective,  positive  evidence  that  there  was  such  an  ‘empire.^ 
The  word  ‘empire’  is  quite  inexcusable,  no  kings’  names  of  those 
who  ruled  it  being  known,  and  no  imperial  city  of  theirs  ever  having 
been  excavated.”^ 

The  statement  that  my  position  is  “based  on  fragmentary  evi¬ 
dence  ...  all  of  periods  far  later  than  the  3rd,  4th,  and  5th, 
millenniums,”  is,  however,  an  unintentional  misrepresentation  of 
fact.  I  admit  that  the  evidence  presented  in  the  monograph  to 
prove  the  actual  existence  of  an  empire,  which  was  all  that  I  had 
to  offer  at  the  time,  was  slight;  but,  nevertheless,  it  is  there.  On 
pages  89  and  104,  there  is  written:  “The  earliest  Amorite  king, 
who  by  his  inscriptions  informs  us  that  he  had  conquered  Babylonia, 
is  .  .  .  um-Shamash,  (also  read  Ishar-Shamash),  king  of  Mari,  and 
Patesi-gal  of  Enlil,  which  means  that  he  was  suzerain  over  the  land 
...  at  least  part  of  Babylonia  .  .  .  and  refers  unquestionably  to 
one  of  those  early  periods  when  Amurru  was  the  dominant  power 
in  Babylonia.” 

But  while  admitting  the  title  was  used  when  the  evidence  was 
slight,  I  am  pleased  to  be  able  to  say  that  more  recent  discoveries 
have  completely  established  the  view  that  there  was  such  an  empire. 
Two  years  ago  a  fragment  of  an  early  dynastic  tablet  was  discovered 
in  the  collection  of  the  University  of  Pennsylvania,  which  enables 
us  to  fill  out  the  break  in  the  fist  of  ruling  kingdoms,  and  restore 
‘  Rogers,  American  Historical  Review  25,  700  f. 


12 


THE  OEIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


the  three  missing  ones  that  had  ruled  Babylonia  in  the  fourth 
millennium  B.  C.  One  of  these  kingdoms  was  the  Amorite  city 
Mari, 2  which  fact  is  in  strict  accord  with  what  I  have  maintained. 
In  other  words,  the  city  Mari,  which  name  was  synonymous  with 
Amurru,^  is  here  found  ruling  Babylonia.  This  puts  the  question 
of  the  use  of  the  word  empire’’  beyond  any  further  dispute.  We 
now  have,  however,  also  other  very  important  light  on  the  subject. 

From  an  omen-  tablet  in  the  Pierpont  Morgan  Library,  con¬ 
sidered  in  connection  with  other  known  fac^s,  we  now  obtain  the 
information  that  Humbaba  had  huipiliated  Babylonia^  a  thousand 
years  earlier,  in  the  fifth  millennium  B.  C.  Even  a  predecessor 
called  Zu,  the  storm  bird,”  had  apparently  also  done  this. 

In  view  of  these  facts,  I  feel  quite  certain  that  the  reviewer,  as 
well  as  others  who  have  shared  his  opinion,  will  withdraw  the 
assertion  that  the  use  of  ^Hhe  word  ^empire’  is  quite  inexcusable.”® 
The  concluding  part  of  the  same  sentence,  however,  namely,  ^^no 
imperial  city  of  theirs  ever  having  been  excavated,”  is  unfortunately 
correct.  If  one  had  been  excavated,  it  is  highly  probable  that 
investigations  along  these  lines  would  have  been  unnecessary. 

There  are  those  also  who  contend  that  the  word  ^‘Hebrew”  was 
unjustifiably  used  in  my  recent  work,  entitled  A  Hebrew  Deluge 
Story  in  Cuneiform.  Of  course  this  assertion  is  based  on  a  dis- 

2  See  Legrain,  Museum  Journal  1920,  175  f.  and  Clay,  Jour.  Amer.  Orien.  Soc.  41, 
243  f. 

3  See  Empire  of  the  Amorites,  p.  68  and  Jour.  Amer.  Orien.  Soc.  41,  257,  note  75. 

^  Clay,  A  Hebrew  Deluge  Story  42  f;  and  Babylonian  Records  in  the  Library  of 

J.  Pierpont  Morgan  IV,  14:65. 

®  It  appears  to  me  that  the  astrological  and  omen  texts,  which  unquestionably 
go  back  to  a  very  early  time,  and  which  refer  to  the  king  of  Amurru  as  weU  as  the 
kings  of  Akkad,  Elam,  and  Subartu,  should  have  been  sufficient  evidence  to  make 
such  opposition  seem  precarious.  In  the  omen  literature  there  are  many  refer¬ 
ences  to  the  king  of  Amurru;  to  cite  a  single  example,  ^Tf  there  was  an  eclipse  of 
the  sun  on  the  16th  day,  the  king  of  Akkad  wiU  die,  and  the  king  of  Amurru  will 
seize  the  throne.’^  {ZA  16,  220). 


FOEEWORD. 


13 


agreement  with  my  basic  position.  The  criticism  is  satisfactorily 
answered  in  the  pages  which  follow. 

For  the  laymen,  let  me  explain  here  the  use  of  the  terms  Amorite 
and  Hebrew.  The  name  of  the  land  west  of  Babylonia,  as  far  as 
the  sea,  was  called  Amurru  by  the  Babylonians  and  Assyrians. 
This  is  only  a  geographical  term,  embracing  the  entire  land,  having 
had  its  origin,  doubtless,  in  the  name  of  a  city,  as  the  terms  Baby¬ 
lonia  and  Assyria  had  their  origin  in  the  city-names  Babylon  and 
Ashur.  This  country  was  occupied  by  the  Aramaeans,  Hebrews, 
Phoenicians,  Canaanites,  and  other  peoples.  The  use  of  the  term 
Hebrew, ‘Amorite  or  Amoraic,  for  the  early  language  of  Ajnurru, 
is  intended  to  designate  the  early  West-Semitic  language  used  in 
this  land,  of  which  we  have  traces  in  early  cuneiform  inscriptions, 
and  which  in  time  developed  into  what  has  been  preserved  for 
us,  which  we  call  Bibhcal  Hebrew,  Phoenician,  Aramaic,  etc.  In 
other  words,  the  term  Hebrew  for  this  early  language,  is  to  be 
regarded  as  .used  here  in  the  same  sense  that  the  Semitic  language 
of  the  plain  of  Shinar’^  is  called  Babylonian;  although  in  the 
early  period  the  upper  part  of  the  land  was  called  Akkad,  and  still 
earher  Uri,  or  Uru.  We  have  an  exact  parallel  in  calling  Anglo- 
Saxon  early  Enghsh. 

The  great  antiquity  of  the  Amorite  civihzation,  as  well  as  the 
Amorite  origin  of  the  Semitic  Babylonians,  has  quite  recently  been 
unreservedly  accepted  by  Professor  Ungnad  of  Breslau  (see  Chapter 
I).  When  this  becomes  general — in  the  light  of  the  data  we  now 
have,  it  cannot  be  otherwise — and  when  these  contentions  as  regards 
the  traditions  which  Israel  and  Babylonia  had  in  common,  are 
accepted — nor  can  this  also  be  otherwise  in  the  hght  of  the  facts 
here  presented — a  readjustment  of  a  far-reaching  character  will 
have  to  be  made  in  every  work  on  the  early  history  of  the  Near 
East.  Besides  the  restoration  to  history  of  a  great  civihzation, 
that  of  the  Amorite  Empire,  it  means  that  the  poHtical  and  religious 


14 


THE  OEIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


history  of  Babylonia,  as  well  as  of  the  Sumerians,  must  be  greatly 
modified  ;^it  means  that  Egyptologists  will  doubtless  feel  inclined 
to  take  cognizance  of  even  greater  influence  than  heretofore  from 
Syria;  it  means  that  the  Classical  scholar  will  appreciate  that  the 
civilization,  reputed  to  have  furpished  Greece  with  many  myths, 
was  very  ancient  and  very  real;  it  means  that  Israel  need  not  be 
regarded  as  ‘^mi-barbarous  Arabs  from  the  desert,  who  borrowed 
their  religion,  their  institutions,  and  even  their  ancestry  from  Baby¬ 
lonia;  but  that  their  civilization,  including  their  traditions,  was 
deeply  rooted  in  their  own  past  history;  and  it  means  the  abandon¬ 
ment  of  many  pet  theories  such  as  the  Arabian  cradle-land-wave- 
theory-of-migration  to  account  for  the  Semites  in  Syria  and  Baby¬ 
lonia.  In  a  word,  it  is  impossible  to  realize  at  present  how  far- 
reaching  in  extent  are  the  modifications  of  prevailing  views  that 
acceptance  will  require. 

In  the  same  review  above  quoted,  in  referring  to  my  withdrawal 
of  one  of  the  many  identifications  which  had  been  previously  made, 
there  is  written  the  following:  It  is  a  pity  that  other  scholars  are 
not  so  transparently  honest.’’  It  seems  to  me  that  it  is  not  unrea¬ 
sonable  to  express  the  hope  in  this  connection  that  others  will 
manifest  the  same  spirit.  If,  in  the  light  of  recent  research,  scholars 
are  convinced  that  the  views  which  they  have  published  on  this 
subject  need  modification,  especially  as  regards  the  traditions  of 
the  Old  Testament,  which  are  being  taught  generally  in  our  colleges 
and  schools,  as  well  as  in  the  pulpit,  it  is  to  be  earnestly  hoped  they 
will  let  this  fact  become  known. 

Although  I  have  entered  the  arena  with  a  thesis  of  a  far-reaching 
and  revolutionary  character,  and  have  tried  to  show  that  the  views 
of  all  my  fellow  Assyriologists  are  wrong,  I  am  gratified  with  the 
manner  and  spirit  of  those  who  have  opposed  it,  for  among  all  the 
many  reviews  and  articles  written  by  American  and  foreign  scholars. 


FOREWORD. 


15 


I  know  of  but  a  single  source — which  happens,  I  regret  to  say,  to  be 
that  of  a  former  pupil — which  could  be  said  to  be  aggressive. 

During  the  past  years  certain  scholars,  other  than  A^yriologists, 
have  not  only  sympathetically  followed  4i;i  these  investigations,  but 
have  wholly  or  in  part  accepted  their  results.  I  deeply  appreciate 
the  encouragement  they  have  given;  for  after  all  the  specialist  in 
Hebrew,  Arabic,  and  Aramaic,  who  also  is  able  to  weigh  the  vagaries 
of  the  Assyriologists,  is  in  the  best  position  to  judge  the  merits  of 
the  issue;  although  it  is  possible  even  for  the  student  of  general 
history  to  do  this  intelligently,  especially  in  the  greater  part  of  the 
discussion  which  follows.  I  should  like  very  much  to  have  before 
the  reader  of  these  lectures  all  that  these  scholars  have  written. 
However,  I  shall  confine  myself  here  to  the  views  advanced  in  the 
interests  of  Babylonism  or  Sumerism,  which  are  responsible  for  the 
deeply  rooted  conviction  that  Israel  borrowed  its  religious  literature 
from  Babylonia. 

I  desire,  in  conclusion,  to  thank  also  my  colleagues.  Professors 
C.  C.  Torrey,  E.  W.  Hopkins,  A.  M.  Harmon,  and  Ellsworth  Hunt¬ 
ington,  as  well  as  my  former  colleague,  James  A.  Montgomery,  for 
suggestions  and  references  which  are  indicated  in  connection  with 
their  names;  and  also  Doctors  E.  M.  Grice  and  Samuel  Feigin, 
who  have  read  the  proof,  and  the  Reverend  George  A.  Kohut 
of  New  York,  who  has  not  only  read  the  manuscript,  but  also,  as 
on  previous  occasions,  made  possible  the  early  publication  of  the 
work  on  the  Alexander  Kohut  Memorial  Publication  Fund. 

Albert  T.  Clay. 


May  19,  1923. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


I  Introductory  Remarks .  19 

II  The  Fourfold  Argument .  33 

III^  The  Creation  Story .  66 

Adam,  the  Garden  of  Eden,  and  the  Fall  of  Man .  Ill 

V  The  Sabbath .  117 

VI  The  Antediluvian  Patriarchs .  124 

VII  The  Deluge  Story .  146 

VIII  The  Tower  of  Babel .  189 


APPENDIX 

Translation  of  Creation  Stories 


A  The  Amorite  Story  of  Creation  {Enuma  elish) .  191 

B  The  Bilingual  Babylonian  Story  of  Creation .  213 

C  The  Phoenician  Cosmogony  ascribed  to  Sanchuniathon  215 

D  Story  of  Creation  ascribed  to  Cannes  by  Berossus . 216 

E  Damascius  on  the  Theogony  of  the  Babylonians .  217 

Index .  219 

Addenda .  223 


\ 


{ 


I 

INTRODUCTORY  REMARKS 


When  the  writer  first  proposed  the  thesis  which  is  here  restated 
under  very  different  conditions,  the  prevailing  understanding  as 
regards  the  antiquity  of  the  history,  culture,  and  religion  of  Syria, 
including  Palestine  and  Mesopotamia,  which  lands  the  ancients 
called  Amurru,  was  as  follows: 

Arabia  was  the  home  of  the  Semites.  The  Arabs  first  entered 
Babylonia  about  2800  B.  C.  and  gave  that  land  its  first  Semitic 
inhabitants,  who  under  the  leadership  of  Sargon  created  a  great 
empire.  About  2500  B.  C.,  a  wave  of  Arabs  entered  Canaan,  and 
furnished  it  with  Semites.  A  little  later  another  wave  poured  out 
of  Arabia  and  overflowed  Syria.  These  were  called  Amorites; 
and  they  established  the  Hammurabi  dynasty.  About  1400  B.  C., 
Arabia  again  ^^spat  out,^^  and  a  wave  of  Arabs  called  the  Aramaean, 
under  Joshua,  furnished  Palestine  with  its  Hebrews.  It  was  not 
thought  possible  that  a  civilization  and  culture  existed  in  Aram  in 
what  had  been  known  as  the  patriarchal  period,  for  the  people  in 
that  land,  at  this  early  time,  were  still  in  the  state  of  barbarism. 
Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob,  therefore,  were  considered  by  some  to 
be  Babylonian  gods;  and  by  others  as  the  personification  of  Arab 
tribes,  clans,  or  ethnological  groups  that  came  into  Canaan  under 
Joshua;  Israelis  sojourn  in  Egypt  was  generally  regarded  as  a  myth. 

With  such  conclusions  concerning  the  early  history  and  civiliza¬ 
tion  of  this  part  of  Western  Asia,  it  naturally  became  comparatively 
easy  for  the  Biblical  student  to  accept  the  idea  that  Israel  had 
borrowed  its  culture  from  the  Babylonians,  the  people  who  had 
repeatedly  invaded  Syria  and  Palestine.  It  really  only  required 
a  small  additional  step  to  accept  the  idea  that  Israel’s  religion  had 

(19) 


20 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


been  extensively  influenced  by  the  Babylonian,  and  that  they  had 
borrowed  their  traditions  and  their  institutions  from  that  land; 
even  that  they  had  Hebraized  Babylonian  mythological  kings  or 
gods  into  patriarchs,  in  order  to  create  an  ancestry  for  their  people. 

Naturally  this  background,  painted  by  Assyriologists  for  the 
Israelite  rehgion  and  culture,  was  unfavorable  to  the  idea  that  their 
traditions  and  religions  were  rooted  in  their  own  past  history. 
Besides,  the  intelligence  of  the  people  who  lived  in  Syria  and 
Palestine,  it  was  held,  was  not  much  above  that  of  the  “brute  beast.’’ 
Beyond  the  confines  of  Egypt  and  Babylonia  were  barbarism;  the 
Hebrews  were  really  semi-civihzed  Arabs  from  the  deserts,  who  had 
adopted  as  their  deity  Yahweh,  the  god  of  the  Kenites.  The 
beginning  of  their  history  was  when  these  Arab  hordes  were  brought 
into  Palestine  under  the  leadership  of  Joshua. 

When  such  leading  Assyriologists  as  the  late  Professors  Delitzsch 
and  Winckler  of  Berlin,  Professor  Zimmern  of  Leipzig,  Professor 
Jensen  of  Marburg,  and  others,  had  reached  such  results;  and  when 
such  Old  Testament  scholars  as  Professor  Gunkel  of  Berlin,  wrote 
that  “as  long  as  the  Israelite  rehgion  was  in  its  vigor,  it  assimilated 
actively  this  foreign  material  [referring  to  Babylonian  myths]; 
in  later  times  when  the  religion  had  become  relaxed  in  strength,  it 
swallowed  foreign  elements,  feathers  and  all,”  Biblical  scholars 
everywhere,  it  seems,  were  influenced  to  accept  these  conclusions. 
In  England,  where  the  original  seeds  of  this  movement  had  been 
sown,  scholars  and  students  readily  followed  the  lead.  In  America, 
the  position  was  conceded  as  correct  by  almost  every  scholar,  and 
the  theories  were  made  palatable  for  the  student,  who  was  taught 
that  the  Hebrew  priests,  knowing  this  Babylonian  mythological 
material,  deliberately  or  unconsciously  appropriated  it  for  their 
rehgious  literature. 

This  has  been  the  prevailing  understanding  for  years;  and 
these  views  are  thoroughly  rooted  everywhere;  in  nearly  every 


I.  INTRODUCTOEY  REMARKS. 


21 


production  written  by  scholars,  it  has  been  assumed  that  they  are 
well  established;  Bible  teachers  have  been  made  to  feel  that  these 
conclusions  are  final. 

It  was  therefore  not  without  some  intrepidity  that  in  1907,  after 
setting  forth  the  generally  accepted  view  as  regards  the  origin  of 
the  creation  story  in  a  book  entitled  Light  on  the  Old  Testament 
from  Babel,’’  I  expressed  myself  in  these  words:  ^^and  yet  it  is  also 
quite  within  the  range  of  possibility  and  reasonableness  to  conceive 
the  idea  that  both  stories  have  a  common  origin  among  the  Semites 
who  entered  Babylonia,  prior  to  their  amalgamation  with  the 
Sumerians,  and  who  may  have  also  carried  their  traditions  into 
Palestine.”  And  again:  Taking  these  things  into  consideration 
it  is  not  impossible  that  the  idea  of  a  conflict  with  this  primaeval 
power  of  darkness,  which  perhaps  is  echoed  in  the  New  Testament 
doctrine  of  evil  angels,  was  brought  into  Shinar  or  Babylonia  as 
well  as  into  Palestine  by  the  Semites  themselves;  in  which  case  it 
would  have  found  its  way  into  Canaan,  millenniums  prior  to  the 
time  this  story  assumed  the  form  in  which  it  is  preserved  ii^he 
Old  Testament.”^ 

At  the  time,  there  seemed  to  be  little  known  that  could  be  used 
to  make  such  a  view  appear  plausible.  To  prove  that  these  stories 
were  indigenous  in  Sy'ria,  as  I  believed  they  were,  it  was  necessary 
to  show  first  that  civilization  actually  existed  in  that  land  in  the 
centuries  prior  to  Abraham.  In  the  absence  of  excavations,  the 
only  light  that  could  be  thrown  upon  the  subject  had  to  come  from 
the  Egyptian  and  Babylonian  inscriptions.  Fortunately  the  first 
ray  was  at  hand. 

One  day  in  working  on  the  business  documents  of  the  ^^Murashfi 
Sons  of  Nippur,”  I  discovered  that  the  name  of  a  god  written 
ideographically  KUR-GAL  in  cuneiform,  was  scratched  in  Aramaic 
characters,  reading  ’tur.  That  is,  for  this  ideogram,  which  meant 


1  Light  on  the  Old  Testament  p.  75. 


22 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


great  mountain/^  the  equivalent  in  Aramaic  was  ^wr  (the  char¬ 
acters  that  compose  the  name  Ur  of  the  Chaldees),  which  I  pro¬ 
posed  to  read  and  held  that  it  was  the  same  as  Amurixu)^ 
for  in  many  cases  the  Babylonians  used  m,  where  the  Aramaeans 
used  This  was  the  opening  wedge  for  the  thesis. 

In  texts  published  shortly  afterwards  by  Professor  Peiser  of 
Konigsberg,  the  correctness  of  my  reading  was  fully  established; 
for  in  them  he  found  that  the  name  Amurru  was  written  with  the 
ideograms  KUR-GAL  and  Mar-Tu.^  In  other  words,  the  Aramaic 
writihg  showed  that  Amurru  was  also  read  Urru  or  Uru.  This  at 
the  time  seemed  to  me  to  be  a  discovery  of  far-reaching  importance; 
and  subsequent  developments  have  proved  that  this  supposition 
was  not  incorrect. 

On  the  same  documents  I  discovered  also  that  the  name  of  the 
god  written  ideographically  Nin-IB  was  scratched  on  the  clay 
tablet  in  Aramaic  characters  ^nwU;  and  this  name  I  read  En- 
Mashtu  =  En-Martu,  and  regarded  it  as  Amorite.'^  But  what  I 
proposed,  Assyriologists  did  not  accept.  About  a  dozen  different 
explanations,  by  as  many  scholars,  were  promptly  offered;®  none 
of  which  agreed  with  my  own;  and  about  a  dozen  more  have  since 
been  published  in  explanation  of  this  Aramaic  name.®  Some 
even  tried  to  read  the  characters  differently.  However,  Professor 
Montgomery,  a  year  or  two  later,  in  working  on  an  Aramaic  ostracon 
from  Nippur,  fortunately  found  the  same  name  written  no  less  than 
five  times,  showing  that  my  reading  of  the  characters  was  correct. 

A  few  years  later,  it  was  my  good  fortune  to  discover  the  reading 
of  the  second  element  of  the  ideogram  of  this  name,  Nin-IB^  on  the 

^  Babylonian  Expedition  of  the  University  of  Pa.  X  p.  7  f. 

3  Urkunden  aus  der  Zeit  der  dritten  habylonischen  Dynastie,  p.  viii. 

*  Babylonian  Expedition  X  8  f.,  and  xviii  f. 

®  See  Clay,  Amurru  p.  196,  note. 

®  See  Clay,  Empire  of  the  Amorites  p.  73.  Others  have  since  been  published. 


I.  INTRODUCTORY  REMARKS. 


23 


Yale  Syllabary,  namely  Urtay’^  which  proved  that  my  understanding 
that  the  name  referred  to  Martu  was  correct;  for  Martu  or  Wartu 
became  ^Urtu.  The  prefixed  element  Niriy  ^Tady,’’  had  come  to 
be  read  En  or  Iriy  “Lord”;  for  the  deity,  who  had  been  originally 
feminine  in  its  native  land,  was  regarded  as  both  masculine  and 
feminine  in  Babylonia.^  In  short,  the  new  reading  proved  con¬ 
clusively  that  the  god,  whose  name  is  written  ideographically 
Nin-IBy  and  which  was  read  En-Urta,  was  originally  the  consort 
of  the  Amorite  Uru,  who  in  time,  just  as  I  had  proposed,  became 
mascuhnized.  This  occurred,  as  is  well  known,  with  other  deities. 
But  let  us  return  to  the  story. 

Following  the  discovery  of  these  two  names  written  in  Aramaic, 
I  endeavored  to  show  that  the.  Ni^in  dynasty  (2357-2154  B.  C.) 
was  Amorite.  I  said  that  “the  name  of  the  kings  of  the  Nisin 
dynasty  seem  to  show  West  Semitic  influence,  and  that  the  capital 
was  doubtless  a  stronghold  of  this  people.”®  This  conjecture  was 
based  on  the  fact  that  the  name  of  the  founder  of  the  dynasty  was 
compounded  with  Uru,  namely  Ishbi-Urra,  and  that  other  Amorite 
names  occurred  in  the  list :  Urra-imitti,  Idin-Dagan,  UR-En- 
Urta,  etc.  Further  I  proposed,  on  the  basis  of  a  study  of  the  nomen¬ 
clature,  that  the  Akkad  dynasty  (2847-2665?  B.  C.)  was  also 
West  Semitic;  and,  in  short,  conjectured  that  for  two  millenniums 
prior  to  the  time  of  Hammurabi,  Western  Semites  at  times  were 
able  to  conquer  Babylqnia.  This  being  true,  I  maintained  it  ought 
to  follow  that  a  civilization  existed  in  Amurru,  which  could  have 
produced  myths  and  legends. 

In  1909,  I  published  a  monograph  entitled  Amurru,  the  Home  of 
the  Northern  Semites,  in  which  I  boldly  attacked  the  prevailing 
view  concerning  the  origin  of  the  creation  story,  the  sabbath,  the 

’  Miscellaneous  Inscriptions  53:288. 

•  See  Clay,  Jour.  Am.  Or,  Soc.  28,  139  f. 

•  Clay,  Ibidem. 


24 


THE  ORIGIN  OP  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


antediluvian  patriarchs,  the  deluge  story,  as  well  as  concerning  the 
historicity  of  Abram,  Isaac,  an^  Jacob.  The  reception  that  the 
thesis  received^  was  gratifying,  especially  on  the  part  of  Semitic 
scholars  who  had  not  published  their  views  on  the  subject;  but 
naturally,  the  Assyriologists  who  had  developed  Babylonism,  and 
those  scholars  who  had  popularized  its  theories  by  their  publications, 
were  not  disposed  to  hurriedly  acknowledge  that  their  position  was 
no  longer  tenable;  nor  were  the  hosts  of  Biblical  instructors,  who, 
having  accepted  the  verdict  of  the  world’s  great  Assyriologists, 
and  for  years  having  taught  their  conclusions,  disposed  to  change 
their  views,  because  a  lone  voice  had  proposed  a  reversal  of 
them. 

I  had  not  long  to  wait  for  confirmation  of  an  important  part  of 
the  thesis.  A  few  years  later  Professor  Barton  published  an 
inscription  which  substantiated  my  view  that  the  N!(sin  dynasty  was 
Amorite,  for  it  showed  that  Ishbi-Urra,  the  founder  of  the  dynasty, 
had  come  from  Mari,  which  city  is  in  Amurru.^®  Professor  Poebel 
a  httle  later  discovered  dynastic  legends  and  lists  which  showed 
contact  with  Amurru  in  a  very  early  period. Many  other  facts 
also  came  to  light,  which  confirmed  my  view  that  the  Amorite 
civilization  synchronized  with  the  earliest  in  Egypt  and  Babylonia. 

Since  the  appearance  of  the  monograph  AmurrUy  I  have  system¬ 
atically  fortified  the  thesis  it  contained  by  presenting  one  fact  after 
another  in  articles,  and  in  other  publications.  In  1919,  The  Empire 
of  the  Amorites  appeared,  and  in  it  I  attempted  to  reconstruct  two 
or  more  millenniums  of  history  for  the  land,  prior  to "2000  B.  C., 
and  more  recently,  in  A  Hebrew  Deluge  Story  in  Cuneiform  and 
other  Epic  Fragments  in  the  Pierpont  Morgan  Library y  I  have  pre¬ 
sented  data  of  a  crucial  character  in  support  of  the  entire  thesis. 

Babylonian  Inscriptions  9:4,  22. 

Historical  Texts  (UMBS  IV  1)  13  ff. 

“  Clay,  Jour.  Amer.  Orien.  Soc.  41,  241  ff. 


I.  INTRODUCTORY  REMARKS. 


25 


The  question  now  is,  what  is  the  situation  to-day?  What  do  we 
know  about  the  two  or  more  millenniums  of  history  of  Syria  prior 
to  Hammurabi,  which  was  almost  a  perfect  blank  when  these 
investigations  were  begun? 

We  have  pierced  the  wall  of  silence  and  darkness  at  certain  points, 
and  the  views  we  get  by  peering  through  these  small  and  large  aper¬ 
tures  are  most  illunahiating.  In  order  to  review  fully  what  is  seen, 
with  all  its  bearings  upon  contemporary  history,  it  would  be  neces¬ 
sary  to  reproduce  here  The  Empire  of  the  Amorites  and  A  Hebrew 
Deluge  Story  in  Cuneiform.  However,  a  bare  outline  of  the  vistas 
that  we  get  will  suffice  for  our  purpose. 

We  have  already  referred  to  the  discovery  that  the  Amorites 
founded  the  Nisin  dynasty  (2357-2154  B.  C.).  Quite  recently 
letters  of  Ibi-Sin,  the  last  king  of  the  previous  dynasty  have  been 
published,  in  which  he  complains  that  Ishbi-Urra,  the  Amorite,  is 
making  trouble  in  the  land.^^  As  we  have  already  mentioned,  this 
^‘man  from  Mari’^  succeeded  in  overthrowing  the  Ur  dynasty, 
when  two  Amorite  dynasties,  Nisin  and  Larsa,  were  established, 
and  a  little  later  a  third,  that  of  the  city  of  Babylon. 

A  breach  in  the  wall  of  darkness  gives  us  a  view  of  Amurru  a 
thousand  years  earlier,  at  about  3300  B.  C.,  when  we  ascertain  that 
the  capital  of  Western  Asia  was  then  in  Amurru  at  Mari,  on  the 
Euphrates;  which  city  was  powerful  enough  to  rule  Babylonia 
during  the^  reigns  of  s^eral  kings.  About  a  thousand  years  prior 
to  this  period  we  were  able  to  make  another  breach;  and  this  time 
the  aperture  is  so  large  that  we  get  a  scene  covering  the  reigns  of 
three  Babylonian  kings,  when  we  become  acquainted  also  with 
three  kings  who  ruled  in  the  Lebanon  region.  We  find  that  Zu, 
designated  the  storm  bird,’^  who  lived  in  S3rria,  had  humiliated 
Enlil,  the  chief  god  of  Babylonia,  and  had  robbed  him  of  his  pre¬ 
rogatives  as  ^Tord  of  land,^’  when  a  shepherd  named  Marad,  prob- 

13  Legrain,  Historical  Fragments  (UMBS  XIII)  3,  6  and  9;  see  pp.  28  ff. 


26 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


ably  the  Biblical  Nimrod,  later  called  Lugal-Marad,  ^^King  Marad/^ 
came  to  the  rescue,  and  with  some  kind  of  strategy,  ensnared  Zu, 
and  pursued  him  as  far  as  ^Hhe  distant  mountain  Sabu,^^  in  the 
Lebanon  range.  By  his  success  he  was  not  only  able  to  throw  off 
the  yoke  of  the  West,  but  he  conquered  Aleppo  and  Tidnum. 

During  the  reign  of  Lugal-Marad’s  successor,  named  Tammuj:, 
who  sho  had  conquered  this  region,  we  get,  with  the  aid  of  later 
traditions,  a  remarkable  picture  of  the  age,  when  Ashirta,  whom  the 
Babylonians  called  Ishtar,  was  queen  of  the  land  of  Aleppo.  She 
was  a  Cleopatra  of  that  age,  and  had  many  wooers.  We  learn  from 
the  inscriptions  that  her  palace  stood  amidst  the  cedars  of  Lebanon. 

Tammuz,  who  had  been  born  in  the  cedar  forest,  and  had  become 
a  ruler  of  Babylonia,  with  his  capital  at  Erech,  was  one  of  her  lovers. 
It  was  while  hunting  with  Ashirta  in  a  wooded  gorge  of  what  was 
later  called  the  Adonis  river,  tradition  tells  us,  that  he  had  lost  his 
life.  Here  in  this  valley  his  mangled  body  had  been  buried,  and 
a  great  shrine  had  been  erected.  The  cult,  that  was  apparently 
inaugurated  by  this  woman  in  Syria,  as  is  well  known,  played  one 
of  the  most  important  roles  in  the  life,  religion,  and  history  of  the 
ancient  world. 

Some  time  after  the  death  of  Tammuz,  a  man  named  Humbaba 
usurped  a  throne  in  that  region,  and  was  able  to  humiliate  Baby¬ 
lonia.  It  was  then  that  Gilgamesh,  the  successor  to  Tammuz, 
together  with  his  confederate  Engidu,  fought  with  Humbaba,  and 
succeeded  in  restoring  the  prestige  of  his  land.  The  data  which  we 
can  assemble  bearing  on  these  three  reigns  enable  us  to  reconstruct 
what  can  be  regarded  as  a  chapter  in  the  earliest  known  history 
of  man.^^ 

But  let  us  leave  this  picture  for  a  moment  to  discuss  a  criticism 
that  has  been  offered  as  regards  these  early  characters  being  his¬ 
torical  personages,  for  in  previous  years  they  have  all  been  con- 
Clay,  A  Hebrew  Delude  Story  42  ff. 


I.  INTEODUCTORY  REMARKS. 


27 


sidered  to  be  deities,  especially  because  they  had  been  worshipped 
as  such  in  later  periods  of  Babylonian  history.  In  the  light  of 
recent  discoveries,  however,  _^ere  is  every  reason  for  believing 
that  they  were  heroic  characters  who  were  deified  after  death. 
This  seemed  conclusive  following  the  discovery  of  the  dynastic 
hsts  and  legends,  referred  to  above,  which  Poebel  recently  published. 

While  it  was  anticipated  that  the  statement  that  Ishtar  was  his¬ 
torical  would  not  be  readily  accepted,  it  was  somewhat  of  a  surprise 
to  have  a  young  scholar  in  the  British  Museum  write  thus:  ^^In 
the  summary  of  the  early  history,  few  will  follow  Professor  Clay,  in 
considering  Gilgamesh  and  the  rest  as  actual  historical  figures 
because  their  names  occur  in  a  king-list,  especially  when  it  is 
remembered  that  the  figures  giving  the  length  of  his  reign  are  quite 
impossible.^^^^  In  a  criticism  received  in  a  friendly  communica¬ 
tion,  another  wrote:  ^‘You  are  doing,  or  attempting  to  do,  pre¬ 
cisely  the  same  thing  in  this  twentieth  century  for  Babylonian 
mythology  what  Euhemerus  attempted  to  do  many  centuries  ago 
for  Greek  mythology.” 

The  fact  that  Euhemerism,  as  it  was  developed,  was  in  time  com¬ 
pletely  disregarded,  does  not  prove  that  Euhemerus  was  wrong. 
As  far  as  I  can  ascertain,  since  the  excavations  at  Troy,  and  in  the 
hght  of  other  discoveries,  not  a  few  classical  scholars  hold  that  many 
of  the  so-called  Greek  and  Roman  gods  were  heroic  personages. 
Fortunately  Assyriologists  are  in  a  better  position  to  judge  of  the 
merits  of  such  a  question,  yes  even  than  Euhemerus  himself,  who 
although  he  had  access  to  the  great  libraries  of  his  day,  doubtless 
did  not  have  any  original  manuscripts  of  the  early  period.  We  have 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  original  inscriptions,  written  during  the 
several  millenniums  that  preceded  the  time  of  Christ. 

Thirty  years  ago  Gilgamesh,  although  called  ^Yuler  of  Erech” 
in  the  epic  beaiing  his  name,  was  regarded  as  a  god.  A  little  later, 

“  Sidney  Smith,  Luzac^s  Oriental  List  33,  p.  82. 


28 


THE  OKIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


inscriptions  were  found  which  informed  us  that  he  built  the  walls  of 
Erech.  Later  the  personal  inscriptions  of  many  other  so-called 
gods  came  to  light,  and  even  records  of  their  operations  by  others, 
resulting  in  many  of  them  being  .transferred  from  the  realm  of 
mythology  to  the  pages  of  history.  What  seemed  even  more  con¬ 
clusive  was  the  finding  of  many  liturgical  texts  belonging  to  the 
cults  of  certain  well-known  kings,  some  of  whom  were  adored  as 
divinely  sent  redeemers  able  to  intercede  for  the  living.  In  brief, 
no  one  would  question  to-day  that  the  gods  Dungi,  Bur-Sin,  Gimil- 
Sin,  Ishme-Dagan,  etc.,  were  kings.  And  although  some  of  the 
very  earliest  of  these  deified  kings  in  the  recently  published  dynastic 
lists  were  credited  as  having  ruled  even  longer  than  some  of  the 
Biblical  antediluvians,  there  seemed  to  be  no  reasons  whatsoever 
for  believing  them  to  have  originally  been  deities. 

It  is  on  this  experience  of  the  past  decades,  and  because  of  many 
other  reasons,  that  the  characters  referred  to  above  were  regarded  as 
deified  kings:  namely,  Lugal-Marad,  who  had  delivered  the  land 
from  an  invader;  the  profligate  Ashirta  (Astarte  or  Ishtar)  ^Hhe 
queen  of  Aleppo,’’  whose  cult  included  the  licentious  rites  which 
appealed  to  the  sensuality  of  mankind;  her  paramour,  Tammuz, 
of  whom  it  is  even  said  in  the  Adapa  Legend  that  he  had  been 
king”;  and  Gilgamesh,  ruler  of  Erech,”  who  also  delivered  the 
land  out  of  the  hands  of  the  Amorite  Humbaba  (previously  regarded 
as  an  Elamite  god).  All  of  them,  it  seems  to  me,  had  been  kings 
and  queens.  I  feel  that  this  view  will  ere  long  be  accepted  by  all 
scholars. 

Let  us  now  return  to  the  vistas  that  discovery  and  research  have 
given  us  of  the  early  history  of  Amurru.  At  present  we  cannot  peer 
through  any  breach  of  an  earlier  period;  but  we  hope  ere  long,  by 
the  help  of  the  excavator’s  pick  and  spade,  to  break  through  at 
points  in  the  millenniums  which  preceded,  as  well  as  all  along  the 
fine  of  the  later  periods.  There  can  be  little  doubt  but  that  this 


I.  INTRODUCTORY  REMARKS. 


29 


land  sent  its  people,  centuries  earlier  than  the  time  we  now  know  of, 
into  the  alluvium,  called  in  the  Old  Testament  Shinar,  where  by 
their'  skill  they  harnessed  the  rivers,  and  established  permanent 
homes.  Some  of  the  first  settlers  had  gone  down  to  the  shore  of 
the  gulf,  and  there  on  the  land’s  end  had  founded  a  shrine  which 
they  dedicated  to  the  worship  of  their  god  Ea  (see  infra).  Others 
built  temples  in  various  parts  of  the  land  near  the  great  rivers,  and 
dedicated  them  to  El  and  other  gods  of  Amurru.  Yes,  even  tradition 
tells  us  that  the  kings  who  ruled  the  land  before  the  deluge  came  from 
Syria,  as  is  shown  by  the  Amorite  names  they  bear  (see  Chapter  VI) . 

It  ought  to  be  added  here  that  as  we  peer  through  these  breaches 
we  have  not  yet  been  able  to  see  any  of  those  migrations  of  hungry 
tribes  from  Arabia,  of  which  in  the  past  we  have  so  frequently 
heard.  I  refer  to  the  theory  that  Arabia  js  the  home  of  the  Semites, 
and  that  '^waves’’  of  migration  emanated  periodically  from  that 
land.  Amurru  does  not  seem  to  have  had  to  depend  upon  the 
desert  for  its  inhabitants,  for  Semites  found  the  fertile  valleys 
and  plains  of  Amurru,  as  well  as  its  forests,  its  minerals,  and 
other  treasuries,  at  a  very  early  period.  In  other  words,  we  seem  to 
have  every  indication  that  the  civilization  existing  in  the  now 
earhest  known  period  in  Amurru,  was  then  already  ancient.  The 
theory  that  the  Semitic  cradle  rocked  in  the  deserts  of  Arabia  has 
received  no  substantiation  as  yet  from  these  investigations;  it  still 
remains  theory,  pure  and  simple. 

After  assembling  these  facts  for  the  reconstruction  of  the  millen¬ 
niums  of  history  prior  to  Abraham,  facts  which  make  it  possible 
to  believe  that  such  stories  as  the  creation  and  deluge  might  be 
indigenous  in  Syria,  we  ask,  has  there  been  any  change  in  the 
point  of  view  of  scholars;  have  the  Babylonists  modified  their  views? 

Certain  of  our  foremost  scholars  who  had  taken  no  part  in 
developing  Babylonism  promptly  expressed  themselves  as  being 
skeptical  of  its  conclusions;  but  until  quite  recently  I  cannot  say 


30 


THE  OKIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


that  Assyriologists  who  had  written  on  the  subject  have  done  more 
than  make  certain  modifications. 

Let  me  repeat  here  what  I  regard  as  being  the  first  recognition 
of  the  thesis  on  the  part  of  an  Assyriologist,  and  especially  as  it 
touches  upon  the  antiquity  of  the  Amorite  civihzation.  On  this, 
my  former  distinguished  colleague  and  friend,  the  late  Professor 
Jastrow,  wrote  as  follows:  .  .  but,  gTanting  that  Professor  Clay 

has  pressed  his  views  beyond  legitimate  bounds,  there  can  no  longer 
be  any  doubt  that  in  accounting  for  the  later,  and  for  some  of  the 
earlier  aspects  of  the  Sumero-Akkadian  civilization  this  factor  of 
Amurru^must  be  taken  into  account;  nor  is  it  at  all  unlikely  that 

long  before  the  days  of  Sargon,  a  wave  of  migration,  from  the  north 

/ 

and  the  northwest,  to  the  south  and  southeast,  had  set  in,  which 
brought  large  bodies  of  Amorites  into  the  Euphrates  valley  as  well 
as  into  Assyria.^ 

While,  as  stated,  several  West  Semitic  scholars  had  expressed 
themselves  as  being  favorable  to  the  thesis,  this  was  the  first  recog¬ 
nition  received  on  the  part  of  an  Assyriologist.  There  are  others 
who  have  more  recently  endorsed  the  contentions  that  Syria  and 
Palestine  have  been  occupied  by  Semites  from  the  earhest  times, 
e.,  from  the  late  Neolithic  period as  well  as  those  who  have 
admitted  ‘Hhat  there  is  an  element  of  truth  at  the  bottom  of  them.’’^® 
There  has  followed,  however,  confirmation  of  a  more  pronounced 
character. 

In  a  review  of  The  Empire  of  the  Amorites j  Professor  Rogers 
writes,  ^Hhat  the  book  is  crowded  with  the  proofs  that  Amorites 
lived  and  influenced  the  course  of  human  history  and  that  we  must 
find  a  place  for  them  larger  than  most  of  us  had  dreamed  before 
Clay  began  these  investigations  more  than  a  decade  ago.  It  is  his 

Jastrow,  Religious  Belief  in  Babylonia  and  Assyria  26  f. 

Albright,  J our.  Pal.  Orien.  Soc.  II,  p.  135. 

Sayce,  Expository  Times,  1922,  Nov.  p.  76. 


I.  INTRODUCTORY  REMARKS. 


31 


due  to  say  that  he  has  opened  new  windows  into  the  dimly  seen 
and  darkly  understood  lands  of  Western  Asia  as  the  early  kingdoms 
were  founded.  He  has  not  demonstrated  the  existence  of  an 
empire  [on  this  see  the  Foreword],  but  of  an  influence,  and  that  is 
quite  enough.”^®  There  has,  however,  appeared  more  recently 
what  is  even  more  decided  in  character. 

Professor  Ungnad  of  Breslau,  in  a  brochure  which  has  just 
appeared,  now  fully  admits  corroboration  of  my  basic  position. 
He  writes  that  the  Arabian  and  African  origin  of  the  Semites  is 
becoming  more  and  more  improbable  as  investigations  advance; 
that  the  Semites  were  already  in  Syria,  4500  B.  C.;  that  it  was  a 
highly  cultivated  land;  that  the  Semitic  Babylonians  came  from 
Amurru;  that  the  great  Amorite  Empire,  which  the  Semites  had 
created,  had  been  destroyed  by  the  Hittites  and  Egyptians;  and 
that  the  Amorites  very  probably  had  an  alphabetic  script  long  before 
the  earliest  that  is  known.^®  It  is  needless  to  say  that  this  is  in  i 
complete  accord  with  what  I  have  been  maintaining  as  regards  the 
early  history  and  civilization  of  the  Amorites. 

If  these  points  bearing  on  the  great  antiquity  of  the  Amorite 
civiUzation  are  generally  acknowledged — and  they  will  be,  for  the 
proof  has  already  been  presented — I  feel  that  the  foundation  upon 
which  my  entire  structure  rests  is  estabhshed.  This  is,  therefore, 
an  all-important  gain;  for  without  it,  or  rather  the  evidence  upon 
which  it  is  based,  an  early  civilization  would  have  to  be  postulated 
for  Syria,  out  of  which  emanated  the  influences  which  were  exerted 
upon  Babylonia  and  Egypt.  This  is  now  unnecessary.  More¬ 
over,  with  this  historical  background  estabhshed,  I  hope  in  the 
present  monograph  to  force  many  vital  conclusions  with  reference  to 
the  origin  of  religious  and  cultural  elements  that  found  their  way 
into  Babylonia;  among  which  are  the  creation  and  deluge  stories. 

Rogers,  American  Historical  Review  25,  700  ff. 

Ungnad,  Die.  dltesten  Volkerwanderungen  Vorderasiens. 


32 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


In  doing  so,  I  realize  that  I  shall  have  many  hands  against  me. 
To  inform  the  teacher  that  the  views  which  he  has  taught,  and  which 
his  student  has  accepted,  should  be  abandoned,  or  reversed,  is  not 
likely  to  be  hailed  with  delight.  This,  nevertheless,  must  follow; 
for  I  believe  that  I  can  now  present  the  problem  in  such  a  way  that 
all,  even  those  who  have  not  studied  Assyriology,  can  judge  for 
themselves  the  merits  of  the  position  which  is  now  so  generally 
accepted,  as  well  as  what  is  here  proposed:  namely,  its  aban¬ 
donment. 

If  what  the  lone  Assjriologist  here  presents  is  not  effective  in 
certain  quarters,  there  will  be  no  disappointment.  It  is  a  great  deal 
to  expect  scholars  to  nullify  what  they  have  written,  covering  in 
some  instances  many  decades,  as  long  as  there  is  anything  to  which 
they  can  cling.  I  am  thoroughly  convinced,  however,  that  in  time 
even  their  opposition  will  take  care  of  itself ;  for  in  the  pages  which 
follow  there  is  more  than  sufficient  evidence,  not  only  to  show  that 
their  position  is  baseless,  but  to  establish  the  thesis  that  Amurru 
is  the  home  of  the  traditions  that  we  will  discuss. 

In  the  course  of  the  discussions  under  the  various  topics,  I  will 
give  the  criticisms  that  scholars  have  already  made  of  my  previous 
efforts,  even  some  from  an  aggressive  source  that  do  not  merit  any 
notice.  In  presenting  hundreds  of  facts  and  details,  there  naturally 
is  plenty  of  room  for  shps.  A  few  of  these  which  I  have  discovered, 
or  to  which  attention  has  been  called,  are  cheerfully  acknowledged. 
But  let  me  add  here  that  I  know  of  no  criticism  of  a  vital  character 
that  has  been  made,  thus  far,  which  has  not  been,  or  is  not  here 
fully  answered. 


II 


THE  FOURFOLD  ARGUMENT 

In  discussing  the  problem  of  the  origin  of  traditions  handed  down 
by  Israel  and  the  Babylonians,  the  arguments  are  grouped  under 
four  heads,  bearing  upon  inigrations,  chmate,  names,  and  lin¬ 
guistic  evidence. 

The  first  argument  I  desire  to  use  in  establishing  my  thesis  is 
based  on  a  study  of  invasions  or  conquests  and  migrations,  and  what 
their  respective  bearing  is  in  connection  with  the  cultural  and 
religious  influences  of  the  one  nation  upon  the  other.  This  study 
I  feel  will  be  found  to  have  a  most  important  bearing  in  the  solution 
of  the  whole  problem  before  us,  especially  in  view  of  the  proof  that 
for  years  has  been  offered  for  the  Babylonian  origin  of  the  stories 
in  Genesis,  and  of  Israel's  culture  and  religion  in  general,  as  well  as 
for  the  claim  that  before  Israel  entered  Canaan  it  was  a  domain  of 
Babylonian  civilization.  With  that  in  view  we  will  briefly  review 
what  is  at  present  known  concerning  the  conquests  or  invasions  and 
migrations  emanating  not  only  from  Syria  and  Babylonia,  but  also 
from  Egypt;  because,  like  Babylonia,  Egypt  is  a  great  alluvium 
which  has  been  closely  connected  with  Syria. 

There  were  other  peoples  who  played  a  role  in  the  politics  of  the 
Near  East  in  the  early  period,  as  the  Elamites,  Hittites,  etc.,  but 
having  rather  meagre  knowledge  of  their  history  and  religion,  as 
well  as  for  other  reasons,  we  will  confine  the  survey  to  the  three 
nations  mentioned. 

From  a  study  of  the  movements  of  nations  in  antiquity,  it  seems 
to  the  writer  that  the  following  two  principles  can  reasonably  be 
laid  down.  First,  while  the  conquering  invader  leaves  such  evi¬ 
dence  of  his  presence  in  the  land  as  victory  steles,  material  objects, 

(33) 


34 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


social  and  linguistic  influences,  his  influence  upon  the  religion  of  the 
land  is  either  exceedingly  meagre,  or  nil.  Secondly,  when  migra- 
tions  take  place,  including  also  the  exiling  or  enslaving  of  peoples, 
the  religion  and  culture  of  the  people  migrate  with  them;  and  Uieir 
influence  is  found  in  the  land^to  which  they  go. 

Let  us  now  take  a  survey  of  the  conquests  or  invasions  and 
migrations  as  well  as  other  related  influences  under  the  following 
heads:  first,  Egyptian  conquests  or  invasions  of,  and  migrations 
to,  Amurru ;  secondly,  Amorite  conquests  or  invasions  of,  and  migra¬ 
tions  to,  Egypt;  thirdly,  Babylonian  conquests  or  invasions  of,  and 
migrations  to,  Amurru;  fourthly,  Amorite  conquests  or  invasions 
of,  and  migrations  to,  Babylonia. 

Egyptian  Conquests  of  Amurru 

No  references  are  made  in  the  Egyptian  inscriptions  to  contact 
with  the  Amorites  in  the  earliest  period.  About  3000  B.  C.,  the 
city  of  Byblos  in  Phoenicia  is  mentioned  in  the  Pyramid  texts. 
The  reports  concerning  the  excavations  recently  conducted  at  that 
city  by  the  French  offer  interesting  confirmation  of  these  refer¬ 
ences;  for  we  are  informed  that  inscriptions  have  been  found  there 
belonging  to  the  early  period,  including  those  of  Mycerinus,  Unas, 
and  Phiops  I.,  and  that  an  Egyptian  temple  was  erected  there  at 
a  very  early  time.^ 

The  first  known  Egyptian  campaign  to  Asia  was  in  the  reign  of 
Athothis,  about  2900  B.  C.^  Snefru,  of  the  Third  dynasty,  men- 

4 

tions  bringing  to  Egypt  forty  shiploads  of  cedar  from  Lebanon. 
Sahure  of  the  Fifth  dynasty  (about  2735  B.  C.),  sent  a  fleet  against 
the  Phoenician  coast.  At  Abushir,  a  relief  has  been  discovered 
showing  four  ships  filled  with  Amorite  prisoners,  also  from  the 
Phoenician  coast.  Uni  of  the  Sixth  dynasty,  invaded  the  land. 

1  Montet,  Syria  II  333  ff . 

*  See  Borchardt,  Mitteilungen  der  Vorderasiatischen  Gesellschaft  17,  342  ff. 


II.  THE  FOURFOLD  ARGUMENT. 


35 


We  have  a  tale  of  an  adventure  in  Amurru  by  one  named  Sinuhe, 
in  the  time  of  Sesostris  I.  In  the  reign  of  Sesostris  III  (1887-1849 
B.  C.),  a  district  called  Sekmen,  perhaps  Shechem  in  Palestine,  was 
pillaged.  Ahmose  I,  Thutmose  I,  and  Thutmose  II  also  invaded 
Syria.  Thutmose  III,  as  is  so  well  known,  completely  subjugated 
the  land,  and  brought  it  under  the  control  of  Egypt.  His  successors 
lost  it  to  the  Hittites  and  the  Habiri  in  the  time  of  Amenhotep  IV. 
The  operations  of  Seti  I,  Rameses  II,  Merneptah,  Sheshonk,  Necho, 
and  others  in  Palestine  and  Syria,  are  well  known. 

The  social  and  political  influences  exerted  by  Egypt  upon  Amurru, 
as  determined  by  excavations,  are  shown  by  such  archaeological 
evidences  of  their  presence  in  the  land  as  victory  steles,  scarabs, 
pottery,  etc.  These  have  been  found  in  practically  every  site  that 
has  been  excavated  in  Palestine.  One  needs  only  to  examine  the 
collections  of  Palestinian  antiquities  in  Jerusalem,  Constantinople, 
and  elsewhere,  to  be  fully  convinced  of  this  fact.  However,  it  is  to 
such  political  or  cultural  matters  that  Egyptian  influence  is  conflned. 

Besides  these  expeditions  to  Syria  and  the  conquest  of  that 
country,  and  the  establishing  of  a  temple  at  Byblos,  we  know 
of  the  missionary  efforts  to  establish  the  worship  of  Amen  in  that 
land.  Thutmose  III  dedicated  three  cities  to  that  deity  in  the 
Lebanon  district;  Seti  I  set  up  his  own  statue  in  Bashan,  repre¬ 
senting  himself  as  offering  a  libation  to  Amen.  Rameses  III  also 
dedicated  cities  in  Syria  to  Amen-Re,  and  built  a  shrine  for  his 
worship  in  Canaan.  At  the  time  of  the  Egyptian  supremacy  in 
the  land,  if  the  local  ruler  refused  to  sacrifice  to  the  Egyptian  gods, 
it  was  a  sign  of  open  revolt.  Although  the  expressed  devotion  to 
^The  sun’’  in  the  Amarna  letters  retained  the  Amorite  name  of 
Shamash,  it  was  nevertheless  intended  to  show  obeisance  to  the 
Egyptian  god.  Such  facts  show  us  that  rulers  doubtless  officially 
sacrificed  to  Amen.  Even  the  people  were  taxed  to  support  the 
shrines  that  had  been  established.  The  story  of  Wenamon  (about 


36 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


1100  B.  C.),  some  years  after  this  supremacy  came  to  an  end, 
would  seem  to  show  that  the  prestige  of  the  god  had  not  entirely 
ceased  at  that  time.  Nevertheless,  in  spite  of  these  efforts,  there 
does  not  seemj^o  h^e  been  any  permanent  influence  made  upon 
the  religions  of  Canaan  by  the  Eg3^tian  religion.  A  study  of  the 
"place  names  does  not  show  any.  Certainly  the  literature  of  the 
Old  Testament  does  not  betray  any.  ‘  ^ 

This  lack  of  influence  of  the  Egyptian  religion  can  only  be 
explained  as  being  due  to  the  fact  that  the  Egyptians  did  not 
colonize'  in  Syria.  They  had  fortresses  and  outposts  m  the'  land, 
but  aplpareiitly  when  the  service  of  the  Egyptians  came  to  an  end, 
they  preferred  to  return  to  the  Nile  valley.  As  far  as  is  known, 
there  were  no  migrations  t^p  Amurru  from  Egypt;  excepting,  of 
course,  the  return  of  the  sons  of  Israel.  There  is  a  perfectly  sane 
reason  for  this  fact.  While  there  are  certain  plains  or  valleys,  like 
the  Jordan,  Esdraelon,  and  the  Shephelah,  which  attracted  peoples 
from  other  parts,  as  well  as  such  districts  as  Aleppo,  Haran,  Damas¬ 
cus,  etc.;  and  while  the  land  '^yielded  figs  and  vines,’’  and  ^^more 
plentiful  than  water  was  its  wine,  copious  its  honey,  and  plenteous 
its  oil,”  how  do  these  compare  with  what  was  so  easily  obtained  in 
the  Nile  valley?  Imagine  an  Egyptian  choosing  to  leave  ‘^the  flesh 
pots”  of  his  land,  with  its  opulent  fertility,  to  dwell  in  Palestine. 

It  is  becoming  popular  to  regard  the  sojourn  of  the  sons  of  Jacob 
in  Egypt  as  a  myth.  This,  of  course,  is  based  on  a  mere  conjecture. 
For  me  it  is  rather  difficult  to  believe  that  such  a  tradition,  with 
all  that  it  involved,  could  have  taken  such  a  hold  upon  a  people  and 
their  literature  without  there  being  a  historical  basis  for  it ;  especially 
when  we  recall  that  in  their  temple  service,  and  in  an  annual  festival, 
right  under  the  eyes  of  Egypt,  the  history  of  their  serfdom  and  bond¬ 
age  was  recited,  and  their  dehverance  commemorated. 

True,  the  Hebrews  did  not^bring  back  to  Palestine  such  customs 
and  evidences  of  their  sojourn  as^did  Judah,  for  example,  when  it 


II.  THE  FOUKFOLD  ARGUMENT. 


37 


returned  from  Babylonia.  In  Egypt  and  in  Israel,  sacrifices  were 
offered,  libations  poured,  and  vestments  were  worn  by  the  priests; 
and  it  seems  they  also  had  in  common  such  things  as  the  ark  with 
its  adornments,  the  breast-plate,  and  doubtless  other  ceremonial 
paraphernalia.  Although  the  use  of  many  ^of  these  things  was  ^ 
universal  at  the  time,  it  is  nevertheless  reasonable  to  suppose  that 
Egyptian  patterns  which  were  familiar  to  Aaron,  the  high  priest, 
would  have  influenced  those  of  the  Hebrews,  even  though  the 
signification  attached  to  these  things  was  altogether  different 
in  Israel. 

It  would  be  impossible  to  understand  how,  when  Moses  codified 
the  precepts  of  Israel,  he  was  not  influenced  by  Egyptian  law, 
perhaps  even  by  the  legal  language;  and  it  is  difficult. to  understand 
how  Israel  could  live  in  a  land  fairly  surcharged,  as  one  has  said, 
with  eschatological  ideas  where  the  people  were  so  busy  attending 
to  the  needs  of  the  dead,  and  yet  not  develop  such  an  idea  as  the 
Egyptian  had  of  the  resuscitation  of  the  departed.  It  seems, 
however,  that  even  the  Hebrew  doctrine  of  the  resurrection  belongs 
to  a  later  period.  It  should  also  be  noted  that  while  Egyptian 
scarabs,  the  symbol  of  immortality,  are  found  in  the  ruins  of  the 
land,  we  have  as  yet  no  indication  that  any  of  them  are  to  be  asso¬ 
ciated  with  the  Hebrew  religion. 

The  fact  that  Israel  had  lived  in^e  delta  more  or  less  removed 
from  the  chief  centres,  must  at  least  in  part  explain  this;  but  it 
would  seem  that  the  tenacity  for  their  own  belief,  which  has  been  so 
characteristic  of  the  Hebrews  in  all  ages,  is  doubtless  the  chief  reason  ^ 
why  they  were  not  influenced  by  the  religion,  and  even  very  little 
by  the  culture  of  the  Egyptians. 

I  have  dwelt  at  some  length  on  this  subject  because  of  the  clairn 
that  the  Hebrews  have  so  re^ly  assimilated  the  beliefs  of  the  ^ 
Babylonians.  This,  as  we  shall  see,  is  not  only  without  any  veri¬ 
fication,  but,  it  seems  to  me,  shows  a  lack  of  appreciation  of  the 


38 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


loyalty  which  Jews  have  always  displayed  for  their  faith.  '  And, 
moreover,  it  is  amazing  to  find  certain  Jewish  scholars  themselves 
not  only  accepting  such  conjectures  of  the  Babylonists,  but  popu¬ 
larizing  them. 

In  summing  up  th*e  religious  influences  of  the  near  neighbor 
Egypt  upon  Amurru,  we  can  only  come  to  the  conclusion  that  they 
are  practically  nil;  and  that  this  must  be  attributed  to  the  fact< 
that  Egyp^ans  did  not  migrate  to  that  land. 

^  \ 

Amorite  Conquests  of  and  Migrations  to  Egypt 

Let  us  now  inquire  what  knowledge  we  have  concerning  Amorite 
conquests  or  invasions  of,  and  migrations  to,  Egypt.  While  from 
what  is  here  presented  an  extensive  influence  of  Amurru  can  be  in¬ 
ferred,  we  have  unfortunately  no  historical  records  from  that  land 
to  give  us  data  concerning  their  conquests  or  migrations.  The 
absence  of  any  historical  inscriptions  from  this  region,  of  course,  is 
weH^  understood  as  being  due  to  the  lack  of  excavations  having  been 
conducted  there  until  quite  recently,  excepting  in  Palestine;  and 
also  to  the  fact  that  a  perishable  writing  material  was  very  generally 
used.  We  are,  however,  in  hopes  that  the  French  will  find  such 
inscriptions  at  Byblos;  or  when  excavations  are  conducted  at  such 
sites  as  Aleppo,  Antioch,  Kedesh,  Haran,  Mari,  that  cuneiform 
tablets  will  be  found  similar  to  such  archives  as  have  been  dis¬ 
covered  in  Hittite  regions.  But  while  records  from  early  Syria  are 
wanting,  we  can,  however,  definitely  show  that  Amurru  not  only 
invaded  Egypt,  but  migrated  to  that  land. 

Egyptian  scholars  agree  that  extehsive  Semitic  influences  had 
already  been  exerted  upon  the  language  of  Egypt  at  the  verjrfeegin- 
ning  of  the  historical  period.^  Ci^r^logical  researcli  has  shown 
the  same  thing.l/  The  influence  of  Byblos  as  early  as  3000  B.  C., 
and  the  veneration  of  the  goddess  of  that  city  in  Egypt,  imply  migra- 
*  Mueller,  Orientalistische  Literature eitung  XI  403  f. 


5 


II.  THE  FOURFOLD  ARGUMENT. 


39 


tions  from  Amurru.  In  the  dark  period  from  about  2350  R.  C., 
at  the  very  time  thd  -Amorites  occupied  the  thrones  of  Babylonia, 
it  is  ponceded  tl^t  many  Semitic  loan  words  were  introduced  in 
the  Egyptian  language.^  The  same  thing  occurred  ^  Babylonia. 
This  lexicographical  and  grammatical  influence  upon  the  Egyptian 
language,  in  the  absence  of  historical  data,  speaks  loudly  as  regards 
migrations.  Since  Aniurru  was  then  politically  in  the  ascendency, 
there  can  be  little  doubt  as  to  the  origin  of  this  Semitic  influence. 
This  is  confirmed  by  Professor  Flinc^rsJPetrie  who  informs  us  of  the 
discovery  of  ^^a  remarkable  cylinder  of '^dsppF  with  the  name  of 
Khandy  ...  a  Syrian  king  ruling  Egypt.’’  This,,  he  further  tells 
us,  seems  to  show  the  political  influence  of  the  Vlllth  dynasty, 
and  is  closely  in  accord  with  Professor  Clay’s  view  of  an  early 
Amorite  kingdom.”^  ^ 

It  is  now  generally  conceded  that  the  Hyksos,  who  invaded  and 
held  Egypt  in  the  early  part  of  the  second  millenniuin  B.  C.,  were 
Semj|es  fr^m  Syria.  It  was  also  about  this  time  that  the  sons  of 
Jacob  went  down  to  Egypt.  We  even  have  a  remarkable  mural 
painting,  belonging  to  the  time  of  Sesostris  III  (1887-1849  B.  C."), 
depicting  thirty-seven  men,  women,  and  children,  from  Syria, 
headed  by  their  chief,  Abesha,  bringing  presents.  Abesha  is  the 
same  name  as  the  Hebrew  Abshai  of  the  Old  Testament.  The  scene 
presents  a  picture  of  a  civilized  people. 

The  late  Professor  W.  M.  Mueller  of  Philadelphia,  in  his  work  on 
Egyptian  Mythology,  has  informed  ,us  that  a  considerable  part  of 
Egyptian  religious  thought  was  influenced  by  Ainiu*ru.  Even 
Amorite  mytl^  were  adopted.  An  illustration  of  this  is  to  be  found 
in  the  conflict  between  the  god  of  light  and  the  primaeval  monster 
of  the  abyss,  known  as  “the  Creation  myth,”  in  other  words  the 

B^aiscH-p^niHscken  Sr>rack..ei,e  an,e,^,e  Lekn.^;  also 
Burchardt,  Alt-kanaandischen  Fremdworte  und  Eigennamen  im  Aegyptischen. 

‘  See  The  Expository  Times,  Dec.  1921,  p.  121. 


N 


( 


40 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


story  which  the  Babylonians  also  borrowed.  This,  he  tells  us, 
reached  Egypt  some  time  after  2500  B.  C.,  and  gave  rise  to  the  story 
of  the  gigantic  serpent,  'Apop,  the  enemy  of  the  sun-god. 

xlt  would  seem  to  me  this  i^orite  myth  hald  migrated  with  the 
people  to  Egypt  in  the  dark  period,  above  referred  to,  beginning 
about  2350  B.  C.  This  is  a  strikingly  significant  point  in  this  whole 
discussion,  because  at  this  time,  as  mentioned  above,  the  Amorites 
also  invaded  Babylonia. 

Mueller  also  informed  us  that  only  faint  traces  of  the  creation 
of  the  world  from  the  carcass  of  the  abysmal  dragon  are  found,  but 
other  ideas  bearing  on  the  conflict  with  the  monster  recur  in  many 
variant  forms.  Isis  and  Osiris^are  identified  with  the  Tammuz 
and  Ishtar  l^nds  ^f  S^a.®  /  Following  the  Hyksos  occupation, 
he  further  tells  us,  the  worship  of  Asiatic  deities  became  fashionable 
in  Egypt,  being  propagated  by  many  immigrants,  mercenaries, 
merchants,  etc.,  from  Syria.  Among  the  gods  of  Amurru  worshipped 
in  Egypt  are  Ba’al,  Besheph,  Shalman,  Astarte,  Qedesh,  Nikkal, 
and  Anat.’ 

In  summing  up  the  influences  exerted  by  Amurru  upon  Egypt, 
and  vice  versa,  we  can  only  conclude  that  Egypt  has  left  no  impress 
upon  the  religion,  and  even  little  upon  the  culture,  of  Syria  and 

®  I  cannot  follow  Langdon  {Journal  of  Egyptian  Arch.  VII  133  ff),  who  has  tried 
to  show  that  the  Egyptian  religion  is  related  to  the  Sumerian  because  of  certain 
similarities  found  in  rituals  of  the  Tammuz  and  Ishtar  cults  and  those  of  Osiris  and 
Isis,  especially  because  they  bore  the  same  relation  to  each  other:  namely,  as 
brother  and  husband.  The  Tammuz  and  Ishtar  cult,  I  maintain,  is  West  Semitic. 
Further,  I  see  in  other  evidence  offered  to  prove  such  a  relationship  between  the 
Egyptians  and  Sumerians  nothing  beyond  the  fact  that  Egypt  and  Sumer  had 
certain  ideas  in  common;  other  ancient  nations  had  them  as  well.  I  refer  to  the 
theory  of  emanation  from  the  union  of  a  god  and  goddess;  figurines  of  the  mother 
goddess  and  child;  etc.  Moreover,  I  think  Langdon  could  prove  much  more 
effectively  that  the  linear  writing  of  the  American  Indian  is  a  ‘‘survival  of  the 
Old  Sumerian  writing”  than  are  the  Egyptian  “pottery  marks,”  for  a  large  collec¬ 
tion  of  Indian  glyphs  can  be  assembled,  which  are  strikingly  similar  to  the  Sumerian. 

’  Mueller,  Egyptian  Mythology  104  ff. 


II.  THE  FOURFOLD  ARGUMENT. 


41 


Palestine;  and  that  this  was  due  to  the  lack  of  migrations  to  that 
land.  On  the  other  hand,  we  must  conclude  that  the  influence  of 
Amurru  upon  Egypt  was  exceedingly  great;  and  that  this  was  due 
to  the  fact  that  migrations  to  that  land  took  place. 

Babylonian  Conquests  of  Amurru  I 

Let  us  now  turn  to  Babylonia,  and  incjuire  what  light  we 
have  concerning  that  land’s  conquests  of,  and  migrations  to, 
Amurru. 

One  of  the  earliest  Babylonian  kings  known,  Etana,  who  tells  us 
he  subdued  all  lands,  very  probably  invaded  Syria.  Lugal-Marad 
and  Tammuz,  prior4}o  4000  B.  G.,  we  know  conquered  the  West. 
The  consort  of  the  latter,  called  Ishtar  in  Babylonia,  the  writer 
feels  he  has  shown,  as  already  mentioned,  was  Ashirta,  a  queen 
who  ruled  at  Aleppo.  Gilgamesh,  who  followed  Tammuz,  overthrew 
Humbaba  of  the  Lebanon  district.  All  this  occurred  before  4000 
B.  C.» 

Lugal-zaggisi,  king  of  Erech,  conquered  the  Westland  as  far  as 
the  Mediterranean,  as  did  also  his  successor  Sargon  (c.  2850  B.  C.), 
and  a  little  later,  Naram-Sin.  Gudea,  the  patesi  of  Lagash,  we 
know,  secured  building  materials  in  Amurru.  The  kings  of  the 
Fourth  Ur  dynasty  likewise  had  considerable  to  do  with  this  land; 
for  they  held  it  in  subjection  until  the  Amorites,  about  2350  B.  C., 
overthrew  their  rule.  Chedorlaomer,  king  of  Elam,  and  his  allied 
kings,  as  we  learn  from  the  fourteenth  chapter  of  Genesis,  invaded 
Palestine  after  the  land  rebelled  against  his  suzerainty.  That 
Elam  held  the  suzerainty  of  Amurru  at  this  time,  is  fully  confirmed 
by  the  inscriptions. 

For  about  a  dozen  centuries,  following  the  Hammurabi  period, 
the  land  was  unmolested  by  the  Babylonians.  The  Assyrians,  how¬ 
ever,  under  Shamshi-Adad  I,  about  2000  B.  C.,  conquered  the 


*  A  Hebrew  Deluge  Story  45  f . 


42 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


/  I 

Lebanon  district ;  ^and  in  the  first  millennium  B.  C.,  completely 
subjugated  the  land.  We  need  not  rehearse/ here  the  Assyrian 
suzerainty  of  Syria  and  Palestine,  for  this  is  familiar  to  all. 

"  i 

I  desire,  in  reviewing  these  conquests  and  invasions,  to  point  out 
that  white'  the  Babylonians  often  humiliated  Syria  and  Palestine, 
and  held  it  in  subjection  for  long  periods,  we  have  no  knowledge 
of  any  migrations  to  that  land,  excepting  of  course  when  the  Jews 
returned  to  their  Zion,  from  the  Babylonian  captivity. 

No  one  will  question  that  Babylonian  customs  and  personal 
names  migrated  with  Judah  when  it  returned  from  the  captivity. 
Moreover,  it  would  be  remarkable  if  such  had  not  been  the  case. 
But  when  we  are  asked  to  believe  that  during  the  exile,  Israel’s 
religion  absorbed  much  from  the  Babylonian,  when  the  creation 
and  deluge  myths,  etc.,  were  adopted,  this  is  a  totally  different 
matter;  and,  I  maintain,  it  is  untenable. 

We  should  also  mention  here  the  fact  that  Sargon  II  replaced’ 
the  Hebrews  which  he  carried  away  from  Samaria  with  men  from 
Babel,  Cutha,  etc.  Their  influence,  moreover,  does  not  seem  to 
have  been  felt  upon  the  religion  of  the  Samaritans.  Doubtless  not 
many  moons  passed  before  a  large  portion  of  them  had  trekked  back 
to  their  fertile  land.  ^ 

The  trade  routes  passed  through  the  district  of  Samaria,  and  there 
was^on^tant  intercourse  with  the  heathen,  resulting  in  many  aposta¬ 
tizing;  for  the  claim  is  that  their  prophets  “prophesied  by  Ba*al,” 
and  caused  the  people  to  err ;  nevertheless,  in  the  years  following  the 
capture  of  Samaria,  the  Jews  did  not  charge  the  people  with 
idolatry.  In  short,  there  is  no  evidence  of  any  foreign  influence 
upon  the  religion  and  culture  of  the  Samaritans  at  this  time. 

There  is  one  other  movement  which  has  been  very  much  over¬ 
worked  in  efforts  to  make  Babylonism  appehr  reasonable.  Abra¬ 
ham,  the  son  of  Terah,  we  learn  from  Genesis,  went  from  Ur  of  the 
Chaldees  to  Haran,  whence  he  migrated  to  Palestine.  This  is 


II.  THE  FOURFOLD  ARGUMENT. 


43 


looked  upon  by  some  scholars  as  the  migration  from  Babylotiia  of 
the  Terahites. 

The  identity  of  Mugheir  in  Southern  Babylonia  with  Ur  of  the  ^ 
Chaldees,  although  possible,  is  by  no  means  certain,  and  especially 
since  the  Jews  who  lived  in  Babylonia  did  not  know  the  site,  think¬ 
ing  that  Warka  (ancient  Erech)  was  Ur,  and  also  because  St. 
Stephen  refers  to  Ur  as  being  in  Mesopotamia  (Acts  7:2). 

I  have  given  reasons  elsewhere  for  believing  that  ’Ur  {’wr)  is 
to  be  identified  with  Mari  on  the  Euphrates  in  Mesopotamia, 
which  city  apparently  was  the  great  seat  of  worship  of  the  god 
’Ur  (’wr) ;  and  which  city,  although  very  important  in  the  time  of 
the  patriarchs,  was  practically  lost  sight  of  in  later  centuries.® 
However,  this  is  a  mooted  question,  and  need  not  enter  into  this 
discussion,  especially  since  Babylonia  was  filled  with  Amorites 
at  this  time. 

It  is  reasonable  to  conjecture  that  this  tradition  may  be  an  echo 
of  a  fair-sized  migration,  headed  by  Terah;  but  this  could  only  be 
interpreted  as  being  a  return  of  Amorites  to  their  ancestral  home; 
for  Abram  was  an  Aramaean.  It  may  even  represent  the  descend¬ 
ants  of  some  who  had  been  forced  to  dwell  in  Ur. 

While,  therefore,  it  is  possible  to  conjecture  that  Ur  was  in 
Southern  Babylonia;  that  the  Amorite  Terahites  while  they  lived 
there  'Mrank  deeply”  of  the  mythological  fountains  of  the  land, 

•Since  Mar**  and  Mar-Tu^^  Amurru  ^  Cm)  are  used  interchangeably,  and 
since  the  name  ’wr  is  also  written  Cr,  I  have  had  no  hesitation  in  identifying  Mar 
or  War  with  Ur.  (See  Empire  of  the  Amorites  100  ff.).  It  would  be  interesting  to 
have  Albright  give  the  proof  for  his  assertion  that  this  is  not  tenable  for  philological 
reasons  {Jour,  Palestine  Or.  Soc.  I,  p.  77).  Following  are  Albright’s  philological 
reasons  for  identifying  Ur  of  the  Chaldees  with  Arbail.  He  arrives  at  this  as 
follows;-'  Arpakshad  is  identified  with  Arrapha  =  Arrapka  =  Arpak,  Arpakshad^ 
Arpak  shade.  The  similarity  between  Arphaxad  and  ’Ur  Kasdum  is  explained 
thus:  The  most  important  city  near  Arrapka  was  Arbela  {Urbillu,  Urbel,  Arbail). 
Urbel  in  Arphaxad,  the  home  of  Abram,  was  corrupted  to  Arkel,  which  was  \ 
emended  into  ’Ur  Kasdim  {Jour.  Bib.  Lit.,  XXXVII  134  f.). 


44 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


as  some  have  suggested;  that  they  carried  Babylonian  myths 
with  them  to  Haran,  and  then  to  Palestine,  where  they  became  a 
vital  part  of  the  religious  conceptions  of  the  Phoenicians  and 
Hebrews — while  all  this  were  possible,  it  must  be  understood  as 
being  simply  conjectural.  But,  moreover,  all  this  does  not  explain 
how  the  Egyptians,  centuries  before  the  time  of  Abram,  through 
contact  with  S3nria  had  borrowed  ^Hhe  myth  of  the  combat  between 
the  god  of  heaven  and  light  and  the  abysmal  dragon  of  the  ocean,^^^° 
otherwise  generally  known  as  the  Creation  story. 

We  find,  therefore,  that  while  many  conquests  and  invasions  by 
the  Babylonians  of  the  land  of  the  Amorites  are  known,  there  is 
no  trace  of  any  migrations  on  the  part  of  the  Babylonians.  In 
explanation  of  this  fact,  as  in  the  case  of  Egypt,  we  need  only  com¬ 
pare  the  land  of  Amurru  with  the  alluvial  plain  with  its  prodigious 
fertihty. 

If,  therefore,  it  is  correct  that  the  Babylonians  did  not  migrate 
to  the  West,  then  according  to  the  principle  laid  down  we  should 
find  that  while  cultural  influences  may  have  been  felt  in  Amurru, 
we  should  not  expect  to  find  that  the  Babylonian  religion  had 
influenced  that  land. 

Let  us  now  inquire  what  excavations  and  research  have  revealed 
in  the  form  of  actual  proof  that  Babylonia  has  exercised  such  an 
extensive  influence  socially  as  well  as  religiously  upon  Canaan  or 
the  Hebrews,  as  has  been  so  confidently  asserted;  or  upon  what 
tangible  archaeological  evidence  the  Babylonists  have  based  the 
statement  that  Canaan  was  a  domain  of  Babylonian  civilization. 

We  need  not  repeat  here  the  story  of  the  Amarna  letters,  that 
in  the  middle  of  the  second  millennium  B.  C.,  the  Babylonian  lan¬ 
guage  was  used  all  over  Western  Asia  and  Egypt  as  the  lingua 
franca  of  that  era.  This  was  unquestionably  a  literary  age.  The 
ability  to  write  in  the  script  of  the  Babylonians  was  no  mean 
Mueller,  Egyptian  Mythology  104  ff. 


II.  THE  FOURFOLD  ARGUMENT. 


45 


accomplishment.  Education  must  have  been  widely  spread.  All 
classes  of  society  and  both  sexes  seem  to  be  represented  in  these 
writings.  The  political  domination  of  Babylonia,  in  some  earlier 
era,  probably  in  the  time  of  Hammurabi,  doubtless  brought  about 
this  use  of  the  language  and  script.  Among  the  peoples  we  know 
used  it  are  the  Egyptians,  the  Amorites  or  Canaanites,  Hittites, 
Mitanneans,  and  peoples  in  Cappadocia  and  Cyprus.  Doubtless 
all  civilized  peoples  of  the  ancient  world  studied  this  lingua  franca 
of  that  era. 

The  Amarna  tablets  have  furnished  the  background  and  the 
backbone  for  the  Babylonist  view  that  the  religion  and  culture  of 
Israel  are  Babylonian.  I  know  of  no  efforts  to  show  that  other 
than  Amorite  lands  were  thus  influenced;  Canaan  especially  is 
centred  upon  in  this  connection,  because,  it  is  claimed,  it  was  occu¬ 
pied  by  a  semi-barbarous  people. 

It  is  generally  conceded  that  this  use  of  the  Babylonian  language 
resulted  in  many  Babylonian  words  creeping  into  the  language  of 
the  country;  doubtless  other  Babylonian  words  also  found  their 
way  into  usage  through  commerce  and  political  occupation.  Know¬ 
ing  what  the  influence  of  the  French  language  was  wherever  it  was 
used  as  the  diplomatic  or  inter-commercial  language,  we  know 
exactly  what  should  be  expected.  It  is  also  reasonable  to  infer 
that  the  scribes  in  Palestine,  who  had  to  know  the  Babylonian  lan¬ 
guage,  would  have  had  copies  of  Babylonian  legends  and  other 
kinds  of  model  texts  in  order  to  study  it,  for  as  is  well  known,  two 
such  texts  were  found  in  Egypt;  which  discovery  the  Babylonists 
have  stressed  so  hard  in  their  efforts  to  show  the  influence  of  the 
Babylonian  religion.  But  it  would  be  just  as  easy  for  them  to 
prove  that  when  French  was  studied  in  England  and  Germany  for 
a  similar  purpose,  the  people  of  these  lands  appropriated  the  Mar¬ 
seillaise,  or  the  legend  of  Jeanne  d’Arc  as  their  own,  as  it  would 
be  to  prove  that  Canaan  or  Israel  appropriated  in  this  age  the 


46 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


myths  and  legends  of  Babylonia  for  their  own  religious  literature. 
In  short,  I  contend  that  without  other  evidence  of  an  archaeological 
character  to  show  Babylonian  influence  upon  the  religions  of 
Canaan,  this  argument  is  futile. 

Let  us  now  enquire  what  has  been  found  in  the  shape  of  archaeo¬ 
logical  material  in  the  numerous  sites  excavated  in  Palestine,  as 
well  as  what  research  in  general  has  produced  to  substantiate  the 
idea  that  Canaan,  when  Israel  entered  the  land,  was  a  domain  of 
Babylonian  culture.  What  light  on  the  subject  is  obtained  from  the 
material  objects  that  have  been  discovered? 

At  Gezer  one  of  the  massehoth,  or  stone  pillars,  which  Macalister 
discovered,  was  polished  with  the  kisses  of  worshippers;  this  he 
regarded  as  possibly  the  central  object  of  veneration.  This  bcetylos 
or  heth-el,  house  of  God,’^  as  Professor  Sayce  calls  it,  is  declared 
by  him  to  ‘Hake  us  back  to  Semitic  Babylonia.’’  The  belief  that 
the  stone  was  a  “shrine  of  divinity,”  he  tells  us,  “belonged  to  an 
age  of  reflection  and  points  to  a  Babylonian  source.”^^  I  cannot 
follow  in  this.  The  massebdh,  or  stone  pillar,  has  not  been  found 
in  Babylonia;  and  I  know  of  no  worship  similar  to  it  in  that  land. 

Concerning  seals  found  in  Palestine,  Professor  Sayce  writes: 
“It  is  true  that  a  few  seal-cylinders  have  been  met  with  in  the  exca¬ 
vations  on  the  city  sites,  but  with  the  exception  of  one  found  at 
Taanach  I  do  not  know  of  any  that  can  be  said  to  be  of  purely 
Babylonian  manufacture;  most  of  them  are  of  Syrian  make,  and 
represent  a  Syrian  modification  of  the  Babylonian  type.”^^ 

It  is  really  surprising,  in  view  of  the  use  of  the  Babylonian  lan¬ 
guage  and  script  in  Canaan,  that,  like  Egyptian  scarabs,  many 
Babylonian  seals  should  not  have  been  discovered  there.  But  let 
us  here  examine  the  one  that  has  been  credited  as  Babylonian. 
The  inscription  reads:  “Atanakh-El,  the  son  of  Khabsim,  the  ser- 

ArchcBology  of  the  Cuneiform  Inscriptions  147  f. 

“  Ibidem  151  f. 


II.  THE  FOURFOLD  ARGUMENT. 


47 


vant  of  Ne-Uru-Gal.”^^  The  personal  names  are  Amorite,  and  the 
deity,  who  was  worshipped  in  Babylonia,  is  also  Amorite.  Other 
names  of  the  same  deity  are  Urra-Gal  and  Urra.  There  are  also 
three  Egyptian  hieroglyphs  on  the  seal.  The  scene,  which  is  rather 
crudely  drawn,  can  scarcely  be  said  even  to  be  patterned  after  a 
Babylonian  model.  This  is  the  only  seal  that  the  above-mentioned 
writer  even  considers  to  be  Babylonian.  In  short,  this  seal  must 
be  grouped  with  those  of  Syrian  manufacture. 

At  Ta'anach  a  bronze  sword  was  found  similar  in  shape  to  one 
which  belonged  to  the  Assyrian  king  Adad-nirari.  Here  again  we 
can  only  express  surprise  that  more  such  objects  have  not  been 
found,  since  we  know  that  Babylonia  and  Assyria  had  dominated 
Canaan  in  many  periods. 

At  Ta'anach  tablets  were  found  in  a  jar,  in  apparently  what  was 
the  residence  of  the  chief  man  of  the  town,  named  Ashirta-washur. 
They  refer  to  political  as  well  as  to  private  affairs.  They  were 
written  in  the  Amarna  period. There  is  absolutely  nothing  found 
in  the  tablets  to  show  any  other  influence  from  Babylonia  except 
that  they  are  written  in  the  language  and  script  of  that  land,  which, 
as  already  mentioned,  was  then  used  throughout  Western  Asia  and 
Egypt. 

To  say,  therefore,  that  these  few  tablets  and  “letters  are  a  final 
proof,  if  any  were  needed,  of  the  complete  Babylonian  nature  of 
Canaanite  civilization  in  the  country  before  the  Exodus is  a 
conclusion  that  I  cannot  follow.  One  could  just  as  easily  show 
the  complete  French  nature  of  any  country's  civilization  during 
the  last  century,  in  the  absence  of  any  other  documents  but  some 
written  in  French. 

Professor  Nowack,  in  his  review  of  the  excavations  at  Tel-el- 

13  Sellin,  Tell  Ta'annek  p.  28. 

1^  See  Ibidem  113  ff.,  and  Empire  of  the  Amorites  p.  54. 

13  Sayce,  Archaeology  of  the  Cuneiform  Inscriptions  150  f. 


48 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


Mutesellim  writes:  is  a  disturbing  but  irrefutable  fact  that 

until  down  to  the  fifth  stratum — i.  e.  to  the  beginning  of  the  eighth 
century — important  Assyrian  influences  do  not  assert  themselves. 
It  is  most  significant  that  at  Megiddo  not  a  single  idol  from  the 
Assyrian-Babylonian  pantheon  has  been  found.’’ Even  the  Assyr¬ 
ian  influence  that  this  writer  acknowledges,  is  based  on  seals; 
but  these,  as  we  have  seen  above,  are  recognized  generally  to  be 
of  Syrian  origin. 

The  results  of  the  excavations  by  Mr.  Macalister  were  the  same; 
concerning  which  Professor  Sayce  has  written  as  follows:  ^‘What 
makes  it  the  stronger  is  that  Mr.  Macalister  has  opened  a  long 
series  of  graves  beginning  with  the  neolithic  race  and  coming  down 
to  Grseco-Roman  times,  and  that  while  the  influence  of  Egypt  is 
sufficiently  visible  in  them,  that  of  Babylonia  is  almost  entirely 
absent. I  think  it  would  be  even  more  accurate  to  say,  that  it 
is  entirely  absent. 

I  find  that  Professor  Gunkel  says  that  the  system  of  measures, 
weights,  and  money,  used  in  Israel  was  Babylonian.  Even  were 
this  a  fact,  it  would  prove  no  more  in  this  connection  than  it  would 
to  say  that  Greece  has  adopted  from  the  Sumerians  the  division  of 
the  circle  into  three  hundred  and  sixty  degrees.  As  far  as  I  can 
understand,  the  Babylonians  and  the  Hebrews  only  had  the  manah, 
shekel,  and  kor,  in  common;  and  whether  these  terms  had  their 
origin  in  Amurru  or  Babylonia,  is  a  question  on  which  there  is  no 
light;  and  moreover,  it  is  also  a  question  of  comparatively  little 
y  consequence  in  this  connection.  The  ancient,  like  the  modern, 
readily  adopted  the  science  of  his  neighbor;  but  not  his  religion. 

Professor  Gunkel  also  tells  us  of  the  influence  of  Babylonia  upon 
Israel  in  the  use  of  particular  numbers,  e.  g.,  7  and  12;  because  the 
Tablets  of  Creation”  were  written  on  seven  tablets,  and  the  Gilga- 

Theol.  Literaturzeitung,  1908,  No.  26. 

Sayce,  ibidem  p.  151. 


II.  THE  FOURFOLD  ARGUMENT. 


49 


mesh  epic  was  written  on  twelve,  etc.^®  Of  course  a  similar  argu¬ 
ment  could  be  used  in  connection  with  any  series  of  books  that 
happened  to  appear  in  seven  or  twelve  volumes. 

In  studying  all  the  antiquities  that  have  been  found  in  Palestine, 
we  can  only  conclude  that  besides  the  inscription  which  Shalmaneser 
III  cut  alongside  that  of  Rameses  II  on  the  cliff  at  the  mouth  of 
the  Dog  River,  a  short  distance  north  of  Beirut,  in  Sjo-ia,  and 
besides  several  letters  and  contracts  already  referred  to,  written  in 
the  intercommercial  language  of  the  era,  we  can  correctly  say  with 
Professor  Sayce  that  ^^the  more  strictly  archaeological  evidence  of^. 
Babylonian  influence  upon  Canaan  is  extraordinarily  scanty 
that  there  are  ^‘few  material  evidences  of  intercourse  with  Baby¬ 
lonia.’ 

This  must  be  conceded  as  remarkable,  especially  since  we  know 
that  Palestine  was  on  the  highroad  between  Babylonia  and  Egypt, 
and  because  of  the  Egyptian  antiquities  which  have  been  found  in 
the  land.  Certainly  from  these  results,  it  is  obvious  that  the  claims 
of  pan-Babylonism  do  not  appear  in  a  very  favorable  light. 

It  is  generally  held  that  the  Bible  had  certain  precepts  in  com¬ 
mon  with  those  found  in  the  Hammurabi  code,  e.  g.,  ‘^eye  for  eye, 
and  tooth  for  tooth,”  as  well  as  certain  laws  which  are  compara¬ 
tively  similar,  including  the  behavior  of  Jacob  and  Laban,  or  Hagar 
and  Sarah,  which  coincide  with  certain  laws  of  the  code.  In  the 
light  of  the  recent  discoveries,  I  do  not  think  that  even  these  facts 
furnish  any  definite  criteria  on  the  subject;  for  aside  from  the 
question  of  interdependence,  it  is  now  admitted  that  Hammurabi 
was  an  Amorite;  and  that  for  two  hundred  and  twenty-five  years 
before  the  time  he  codified  the  laws,  the  land  was  governed  by 
Amorites;  and  moreover,  Hammurabi,  in  the  code  states  that '  he 

18  Gunkel,  Israel  and  Babylon  p.  21. 

Ibidem  p.  151. 

Ibidem  p.  154. 


50 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


put  the  laws  of  Aleppo  into  execution. Exactly  what  importance 
is  to  be  attached  to  this  saying,  of  course,  is  at  present  a  question. 
Further,  we  know  that  the  early  laws  in  the  Yale  Collection,  written 
in  Sumerian,  which  are  a  prototype  of  the  Hammurabi  Code,  are 
the  ^4aws  of  Nisaba  and  Khani,’^  two  Amorite  deities.^^ 

It  is  not  improbable  that  Hammurabi  may  have  promulgated 
his  laws  in  Amurru.  These,  however,  exclude  all  legislation  bear¬ 
ing  on  religious  matters,  and  in  consequence  had  no  influence  upon 
the  vast  body  of  religious  laws  in  the  Mosaic  Code. 

And  now  let  us  face  the  reasons  given  for  the  assertion  that 
Babylonian  theology  had  made  its  way  to  Canaan,  and  extensively 
influenced  the  religions  of  that  land.  This  is  based  upon  the  fact 
that  certain  deities  known  from  the  Babylonian  inscriptions  were 
also  worshipped  in  Palestine.  It  is  said  that  ^The  deities  of  Canaan 
were  to  a  large  extent  Babylonian,  with  Babylonian  names.  The 
Babylonian  gods  Ana,  Nebo,  Rimmon  (Ramman),  Hadad,  and 
Dagon  meet  us  in  the  names  of  places  and  persons,  and  Ashtoreth, 
who  shared  with  Baal  the  devotion  of  the  inhabitants  of  Palestine, 
is  the  Babylonian  Ishtar  with  the  suffix  of  the  feminine  attached  to 

her  name.’ '22 

In  view  of  this  contention  that  in  Palestine  certain  gods  of  Baby¬ 
lonia  were  worshipped,  it  becomes  necessary  to  digress  here  suffi¬ 
ciently  to  discuss  this  assertion  and  ascertain  upon  what  basis  it 
rests. 

It  is  scarcely  possible  that  the  writer  would  say  to-day  that 
Hadad  or  Rimmon  had  his  origin  in  the  Babylonian  Adad.  Prac¬ 
tically  all  scholars  now  agree,  as  far  as  I  know,  that  at  an  early 
date  the  Amorite  Hadad  was  carried  into  Babylonia.  This  fact, 
however,  must  be  regarded  as  very  significant.  Let  us  repeat. 
It  is  now  generally  conceded  that  the  Amorite  Hadad  migrated  to 

See  Clay,  Miscellaneous  Inscriptions  p.  19. 

22  Sayce,  Archmlogy  of  the  Cuneiform  Inscriptions  (1908)  152  f. 


II.  THE  FOURFOLD  ARGUMENT. 


51 


Babylonia  in  an  early  era;  and  there  his  name  was  written  Adad, 
Addu,  Adadi,  Adada,  Dadda,  Dadi,  etc.  These  variant  forms  of 
the  name  in  Babylonian  inscriptions  would  in  themselves  show  that 
the  deity  was  foreign. 

Dagon,  whose  worship  in  Palestine  is  known  from  the  Old  Testa¬ 
ment,  was  in  previous  years,  as  we  have  seen,  also  regarded  by 
Assyriolo gists  as  Babylonian.  His  first  appearance  known  to  me 
in  cuneiform  is  in  a  personal  name  in  the  inscription  of  Manishtusu 
(c.  2775  B.  C.),  which,  it  might  be  added,  is  full  of  Amorite  names. 
Dungi  about  2419  B.  C.  dedicated  a  temple  to  Dagan.  Two  rulers’ 
names  of  the  Amorite  dynasty  of  Nisin  contain  the  god’s  name. 
The  Amorite  king,  Hammurabi,  calls  himself  “the  warrior  of 
Dagan.”  This  deity  was  not  recognized  as  belonging  to  the  pan¬ 
theon  of  Babylonia. 

In  Canaan,  the  Philistines  worshipped  Dagan  at  Gaza  (Judg. 
16:23),  and  at  Ashdod  (I  Sam.  5:1).  There  was  also  a  temple  of 
Dagan  near  Joppa  (Josh.  10:41),  at  present  called  Beit  Dejan. 
There  is  another,  southeast  of  Nablus.  Josephus  mentions  a  for¬ 
tress,  Dagon,  above  Jericho  {Ant.  XII  8:1). 

It  is  now  recognized  by  scholars,  through  the  discovery  of  a  few 
tablets  in  Mesopotamia,  that  in  the  kingdom  Khana,  on  the  middle 
Euphrates,  there  was  a  great  centre  of  Dagan  worship;  and  most 
scholars,  I  think,  are  now  willing  to  concede  that  this  was  probably 
the  main  centre  of  the  worship;  and  also  that  he  was  an  Amorite 
god. 

In  presenting  the  above  facts  I  have  had  in  mind  letting  the  non- 
Assyriologist  know  what  a  change  the  discovery  of  a  few  tablets 
in  the  Amorite  land  has  brought  about;  and  at  the  same  time  to 
call  attention  to  the  fact  that  in  Amurru  we  have  these  many 
geographical  names  connected  with  Dagan,  while  in  Babylonia 
there  are  none;  which  fact  is  paralleled  in  what  we  know  concerning 
other  gods  discussed  in  what  follows. 


52 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


Nebo,  or  Nabu,  was  worshipped  at  Borsippa  near  Babylon.  The 
first  mention  of  Nabu  and  his  temple,  known  to  me,  is  in  the  reign 
of  Hammurabi,  when  that  king  informs  us  he  cared  for  and  built  a 
throne  for  Nabfi.  In  this  Amorite  period  names  compounded  with 
Nabu  appear,  many  of  which  can  be  proved  to  be  Amorite.  Nabll 
does  not  appear  in  the  Akkadian  Name  Syllabary,  but  he  does  in 
the  Amorite;  which  fact  is  very  significant In  subsequent  years 
Nabu  was  included  in  the  Babylonian  pantheon.  In  the  late 
period,  Babylonian  nomenclature  is  again  filled  with  Amorite  names 
compounded  with  Nabti. 

In  Palestine  and  the  surrounding  territory,  there  was  first  of  all 
Mount  Nebo,  where  Moses  died  (Nu.  33:47).  There  was  a  city 
Nebo  in  Moab  (Nu.  32:3),  probably  near  the  mountain,  and  one 
in  Judah  (Ezra  2:29).  According  to  Jerome’s  Onomasticoriy  there 
was  a  Nebo  six  miles  west  of  Heshbon,  probably  the  present  Neba 
on  the  Dead  Sea. 

Whether  we  will  later  find  another  centre  of  Nebo  worship  else¬ 
where  in  Amurru,  as  we  did  that  of  Dagan,  remains  to  be  seen; 
but  knowing  of  these  several  geographical  names  in  Palestine 
mentioned  in  the  early  period,  and  especially  Mount  Nebo;  and 
also  the  fact  that  Nabfi  was  worshipped  only  at  one  city  in  Baby¬ 
lonia,  besides  many  other  facts,  referred  to  above,^^  there  can  be  no 
doubt  as  to  Nabfi  being  Amorite. 

Ashirta,  who  also  appears  in  a  number  of  geographical  names  in 
Palestine,^^  I  feel  I  have  conclusively  shown  recently,  was  Amorite; 
and  that  the  original  seat  of  her  cult,  as  mentioned  above,  was  at 
Aleppo,  where  she  ruled  at  the  time  of  Tammuz  and  Gilgamesh, 
kings  of  Erech.  Her  name  was  written  in  Hebrew,  Phoenician, 
Moabitish,  Aramaic,  South  Arabic  and  Ethiopic,  in  every  instance 

**  Chiera,  Lists  of  Personal  Names  {UMBS  XI  2),  p.  152. 

See  also  Empire  of  the  Amorites  p.  180  f. 

“  See  ibidem  p.  172. 


II.  THE  FOUEFOLD  AKGUMENT. 


53 


with  an  initial  ^ayin.  When  her  name  first  appears  in  cuneiform, 
it  is  written  Ashdar,  Eshdar,  Ishdar;  later  usually  Ishtar.  It  has 
always  been  difficult  to  understand  how  Assyriologists  have  been 
able  to  satisfy  themselves  as  to  the  way  the  West  Semitic  forms  of 
this  name,  which  are  always  written  with  an  initial  ^ayin^  could 
have  arisen  from  the  Babylonian  Ashdar  or  Ishtar,  in  which,  in 
not  a  single  instance,  was  there  even  an  attempt  to  reproduce  the 
laryngeal. 

I  know  of  no  effort  on  the  part  of  Babylonists  to  show  that  Ana 
was  worshipped  in  Palestine.^®  The  goddess  Anoth,  or  Antu,  how¬ 
ever,  is  generally  recognized  as  having  been  worshipped  in  that 
land. 

Antu  appears  in  an  inscription,  found  at  Seripul,  of  Anubanini, 
king  of  Lulubu,  as  the  consort  of  Anu.  While  Anu  of  Erech  was 
the  father  of  the  gods,  and  was  always  foremost  in  the  triad,  Anu, 
Enlil  and  Ea,  the  goddess  Antu  does  not  occur  in  early  Babylonian 
inscriptions  as  being  worshipped  in  that  city.  This  includes  the 
Cassite  and  even  subsequent  periods.  In  the  late  texts,  Antu, 
especially  with  the  meaning  goddess,’^  was  introduced  at  Erech, 
and  coupled  with  the  name  of  Anu. 

In  Palestine,  Beth- Anoth,  probably  the  present  Beit  *Ainiin,  is  a 
city  mentioned  in  Joshua  (15:59).  Seti  I,  and  Rameses  II,  refer 
to  Beth-Anoth.  Sheshonk  captured  a  city  by  that  name  in  Judah. 
Jeremiah  grew  up  at  Anathoth,  at  present  called  'Anata,  near 
Jerusalem. 

The  worship  of  the  Amorite  An6th  was  carried  comparatively 
early  to  Egypt.  At  Thebes  there  was  a  priesthood  of  the  goddess 
in  the  time  of  Thothmes  III  (1479-1447  B.  C.).  Rameses  II  gave 
his  daughter  a  name  which  meant  daughter  of  An6th.^^ 

2®  The  name  is  probably  found  in  Beth  'AnV  (Bethany),  and  in  the  personal 
name  'Aner,  written  An-ram  in  the  Septuagint.  The  deity  is  Amorite,  see  Empire 
of  the  Amorites  p.  169. 


54 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


It  is  not  impossible  that  *Ana  on  the  Euphrates,  in  Amurm, 
was  the  chief  centre  of  this  worship,  for  close  by  is  *Anatho,  which 
apparently  was  a  twin  city  of  'Ana.^^  Since  the  worship  of  Anoth 
was  not  recognized  in  Babylonia  prior  to  the  late  period,  certainly 
the  origin  of  the  deity  is  not  to  be  found  in  that  land.  Here,  it 
seems  to  me,  is  another  very  obvious  and  vital  point  for  the  Baby- 
lonist  to  explain. 

Another  deity  worshipped  in  Palestine,  who  has  generally  been 
regarded  as  Babylonian,  is  the  one  whose  name  was  written  ideo- 
graphically  in-IB)  for  Bit  in-IB  is  mentioned  in  the  Amama 
tablets  as  being  near  Jerusalem. 

There  are  one  or  two  occurrences  of  ^Nin-IB  in  the  Babylonian 
inscriptions  known  to  me  in  the  Akkad  period.  But  in  the  nomen¬ 
clature  of  the  Nisin  dynasty  (2357-2154  B.  C.),  when  Amorites 
flooded  the  country,  many  names  are  found  compounded  with  that 
of  the  deity,  including  a  king’s  name.  Thereafter,  at  Nippur,  this 
deity  became  very  prominent. 

Recent  discoveries  in  Babylonia,  as  already  mentioned,  have 
shown  that  the  ideogram  ^Nin-IB  is  to  be  read  En-Urta,  ^^Lord 
Urta,”  and  that  the  deity,  who  had  originally  been  feminine,  had 
become  masculinized  in  Babylonia. 

Elsewhere  I  have  shown  that  the  name  of  the  great  Amorite 
god,  Uru,  is  to  be  found  in  the  name  Jerusalem,  which  in  ancient 
times  was  written  Uru-salim  and  Ur-salimmu  in  cuneiform..  In 

I '  / 

view  of  this  fact  it  would  seem  highly  probably  that  the  Amorite 
city  had  originally  been  dedicated  to  the  worship  of  Uru.  And  it 
also  seems  reasonable  that  the  shrine  Bit  Nin-IB,  or  BUh  Urta^ 
'^shrine  of  Urta,”  which  was  close  by  the  city,  was  dedicated  to  the 
consort  of  Uru.  In  view  of  these  facts,  and  many  others  presented 
elsewhere,^^  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  this  deity  is  Amorite. 

See  ibidem  116  f. 

**  See  The  Empire  of  the  Amorites. 


It.  THE  FOURFOLD  ARGUMENT. 


55 


Such  a  deity  as  ^‘Moloch/’  whose  name  was  carried  to  Babylonia, 
where  it  was  written  Malik,  as  well  as  the  gods  Attar,  Adon,  Gir, 
etc.,  need  not  be  discussed  here,  since  they  are  now  generally  re¬ 
garded  as  Amorite  or  West  Semitic.  This  concludes  the  list  of 
deities  who  have  been  identified  with  the  West,  as  far  as  I  know, 
that  have  been,  or  could  be  cited  as  Babylonian.  In  short,  not  a 
single  one  of  these  deities  is  Babylonian. 

Before  leaving  this  subject  let  us  inquire  of  the  Babylonists  why 
such  leading  gods  of  Babylonia,  as  Enlil,  ^The  lord  of  lands in 
the  early  period,  and  Marduk,  the  Bel  of  Babylon,  who  usurped 
Enlil’s  position,  and  from  the  time  of  Abraham  was  the  chief  deity 
of  the  land — why,  if  their  contentions  have  anything  in  them,  are 
these  gods  not  named  as  having  also  been  worshipped  in  Canaan? 

It  was  perfectly  clear  in  the  case  of  Egypt,  why  the  rehgion  of 
that  land  made  no  impression  upon  Syria.  The  same  is  true  of 
Babylonia.  People  from  that  rich  alluvial  deposit  did  not  migrate. 
In  short,  while  we  know  that  the  Philistine,  the  Hittite,  Girgashite, 
and  other  peoples,  had  representatives  in  Palestine,  there  is  not  a 
word  in  the  Old  Testament,  or  in  any  other  inscription,  to  show 
that  the  ‘‘Babylonite’^  lived  there,  except  those  whom  Sargon 
brought  to  Samaria. 

It  seems  to  me  that  this  brief  review  of  the  facts  bearing  on  the 
question  before  us,  leads  to  the  conclusion  that  Babylonians  did 
not  migrate  from  the  alluvial  plain  to  Canaan;  from  which  it 
follows  that  the  Babylonian  religion  was  not  carried  to  that  land. 

Although  pan-Babylonism,  as  already  stated,  is  such  an  extreme 
position  that  it  has  practically  exploded  itself,  there  is,  however, 
a  phase  of  it  that  should  at  least  be  briefly  mentioned  in  this  con¬ 
nection.  The  late  Professor  Winckler  of  Berlin,  who  founded  what 
is  generally  called  the  “Astral-mythological  School,”  attempted  to 
reconstruct  the  astrological  system  of  the  Babylonians.  By  his 
work  he  has  contributed  considerably  toward  a  better  understand- 


56 


THE  OKIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


ing  of  the  subject;  but  in  connection  with  his  researches  he  has 
also  attempted  to  show  that  the  Israelite  cult  was  dependent  upon 
a  Babylonian  original;  and  that  the  astral-mythological  element  is 
extensively  found  in  the  Old  Testament. 

In  Winckler^s  efforts  to  prove  his  contention  he  made  use  of  the 
following  kind  of  facts:  Abram  must  be  a  moon-god,  for  he  went 
from  Ur  to  Haran,  two  places  identified  with  that  deity.  The 
318  men  Abraham  assembled  in  going  after  Lot,  are  the  318  days 
of  the  year  when  the  moon  is  visible.  Kirjath-arba,  a  city  in  which 
Abraham  lived,  means  ^^city  of  four’^;  and  this  refers  to  the  four 
phases  of  the  moon.  The  word  Beersheba  means  seven  wells’^; 
this  represents  the  seven  days  in  each  phase  of  the  moon.  The 
four  wives  of  Jacob  are  also  the  four  phases.  His  twelve  sons  are 
the  twelve  months;  Leah’s  seven  sons  are  the  gods  of  the  week; 
the  1200  pieces  of  silver  which  Benjamin  received,  are  a  multiple 
of  the  thirty  days  of  the  month;  and  his  five  changes  of  raiment 
are  the  five  intercalary  days  of  the  Babylonian  year. 

Although  others  have  popularized  this  phase  of  Winckler’s 
theories,  I  feel  that  we  need  simply  have  stated  some  of  the  argu¬ 
ments  upon  which  they  are  based.  Moreover,  his  followers  seem 
to  be  comparatively  few.  Let  it  suffice  to  say  that  Israel’s  law 
required  that  the  man  who  worshipped  the  sun,  moon,  or  any  of  the 
hosts  of  heaven,  should  be  put  to  death  (Deut.  12:2-7).  That 
such  were  worshipped  in  Palestine  is  very  evident ;  but  it  cannot  be 
shown  that  the  worship  penetrated  the  religion  of  Israel. 

/  We  know  that  Egypt  established  shrines  to  Amen  in  Palestine, 
and  that  they  disappeared  without  leaving  a  trace.  It  is  not 
impossible  that  the  Babylonians  may  have  attempted  to  do  a 
similar  thing.  Even  had  they  succeeded,  if  that  had  been  done,  it 
would  prove  nothing  as  regards  the  religion  of  Israel.  I  doubt, 
however,  whether  they  ever  made  attempts  to  do  this.  Certainly 
there  is  not  the  slightest  evidence  that  they  did. 


II.  THE  FOURFOLD  ARGUMENT. 


57 


In  reviewing  all  the  material  that  has  been  used  in  the  past  to 
show  the  influence  of^the  Babylonian  religion  upon  that  of  Canaan 
(without  considering  the  stories  of  creation,  deluge,  etc.,  which  are 
discussed  below),  I  feel  that  there  is  absolutely  nothing  upon  which 
the  theory  rests. 

These  are  some  of  the  reasons  why  I  cannot  follow  those  scholars 
who  have  promulgated  the  idea  that  Canaan  was  ^^a  domain  of 
Babylonian  civilization’^;  that  its  religion  “had  its  roots  in  the 
Valley  of  the  Euphrates”;  that  “Babylonian  myths  were  in 
current  circulation  in  Israel,”  and  that  “when  Israel  entered  the 
land  all  these  ideas  were  a  part  of  the  mental  possession  of  the 
people. ”2® 

Amorite  Conquests  of  and  Migrations  to  Babylonia 

And  now  let  us  inquire  whether  we  have  knowledge  of  any 
Amorite  conquests  of  Babylonia,  or  of  any  migrations  to  that  land. 
In  Genesis  we  have  an  echo  of  the  Semitic  migration  when  they 
,went  eastward  into  “the  plain  of  Shinar,”  and  built  Babel.  We 
find  that  it  can  be  shown  that  most  of  the  names  of  the  antediluvian 
kings  of  Babylon  were  Amorite  (see  Chapter  VII).  We  find  also 
that  the  first  five  postdiluvian  kings  bore  Amorite  names. It  is 
needless  to  enlarge  upon  the  significance  of  these  facts.  Through  a 
recent  discovery,  we  now  know  that  a  usurper  named  Humbaba, 
who  ruled  in  the  Lebanons,  had  humiliated  Babylonia  in  the  time 
of  Gilgamesh,  about  4200  B.  C.,  and  that  Ishtar,  the  queen  of 
Aleppo,  as  mentioned  above,  was  the  consort  of  his  predecessor, 
Tammuz,  king  of  Erech.  About  a  thousand  years  later,  the  Amorite 
city  Mari,  on  the  Euphrates,  as  Ve  have  already  seen,  ruled  Baby¬ 
lonia  during  the  reigns  of  three  kings.  Many  other  rulers  of  Baby¬ 
lonia,  in  the  centuries  which  follow,  bear  Amorite  names,  as  Enbi- 

History  of  the  Religion  of  Babylonia  and  Assyria  p.  136. 

30  See  Empire  of  the  Amorites  80  f. 


58 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


Ashdar,  Ishu-El,  Zi-mutar,  Uzi-watar,  El-muti,  etc.  Later,  in  the 
time  of  the  Akkad  dynasty,  about  2800  B.  C.,  we  find  the  nomen¬ 
clature  of  the  city  of  Al^ad  well  filled  with  Amorite  names. The 
same  is  true* of  the  Ur  dynasty,  from  2474  B.  C.  About  2350  B.  C. 
the  Amorites  overthrew  the  Babylonian  rule  and  completely  dom¬ 
inated  the  land,  establishing  three  contemporaneous  dynasties,  the 
Nisin,  the  Larsa,  and  the  Babylon;  Hammurabi,  the  Amraphel  of 
the  fourteenth  chapter  of  Genesis,  being  the  sixth  king  of  the  last 
mentioned.  We  know  from  the  thousands  of  legal  and  business 
documents  that  the  nomenclature  of  this  time  was  especially  full 
of  Amorite  names.  It  was  in  this  period  that  the  early  version  of 
the  Deluge  story  was  transcribed,  which  the  writer  feels  he  has 
shown  is  Amorite.  Again,  in  the  Assyrian  period  and  in  the  Neo- 
Babylonian  time,  especially  after  Nebuchadnezzar  had  carried  Judah 
into  captivity,  we  find  many  Amorite  names  and,  in  particular, 
hundreds  of  Jewish  names. 

With  the  knowledge,  therefore,  that  there  was  such  a  constant 
influx  of  Amorites  in  almost  every  period  down  to  2000  B.  C.,  as 
well  as  in  the  late  periods,  we  would  expect  to  find  that  the  land 
was  thoroughly  permeated  with  the  religions  of  the  Amorites. 
There  is  a  mass  of  evidence  to  prove  that  this  is  a  fact. 

The  most  high  god,  El,  of  the  Amorites,  was  early  brought  into 
the  land.  The  city  of  Babylon  was  dedicated  to  his  worship  for 
the  name  of  this  metropolis  means  ^^Gate  {Bah)  of  El.^^  The  city 
of  Der  was  likewise  dedicated  to  him,  for  that  name  was  written 
Dur-El,  i.  e.,  Fortress  {Dur)  of  El.^^  Erech  very  probably  also 
had, El  as  its  patron  deity  (see  also  Chapter  III). 

The  god  Uru,  found  in  five  of  the  antediluvian  names  of  kings, 
seems  to  have  been  brought  into  the  land  in  many  different  periods, 
when  migrations  took  place. The  name  of  the  god  Amurru  is 

See  Scheil,  Delegation  en  Perse  II  41  ff. 

**  See  Chapter  II,  and  also  Empire  of  the  Amorites  66  ff. 


II.  THE  FOURFOLD  ARGUMENT. 


59 


but  another  form  of  this  name,  for  in  Aramaic,  as  we  have  seen,  it 
was  written  W  ( =  tJ'ru) .  At  Cutha,  he  was  worshipped  under 
the  name  of  Urra,  Urra-gal,  ^Hhe  great  Uru,’^  and  Ne-Uru-Gal  or 
Nergal. 

Urta,  or  En-Urta,  who,  as  we  have  seen,  was  originally  the  con¬ 
sort  of  Uru,  was  worshipped  especially  at  Nippur,  where,  as  men¬ 
tioned  above,  the  goddess  was  masculinized.  A  study  of  the  nomen¬ 
clature  of  that  city  indicates  that  the  time  when  this  cult  became 
popular,  synchronized  with  the  rule  of  the  Amorites  in  the  Nisin- 
Larsa-Babylon  period. 

Adad,  the  Hadad  of  the  Old  Testament,  as  we  have  seen,  was 
early  brought  into  the  land  by  the  Amorites,  as  was  also  Dagan, 
famihar  to  us  as  the  Old  Testament  Dagon.  The  gods  Ea,  Nisaba, 
Nebo,  Ashirta,  Adgi,  Attar,  Gir,  Khani,  Sharru  and  many  other 
Amorite  deities,  the  Semitic  emigrants,  who  moved  into  Babylonia, 
brought  with  them.  This  is  a  natural  conclusion.  History  records 
no  exception  to  the  rule  that  migrating  people  have  carried  their 
religion  with  them.  And  it  is  certainly  reasonable  to  infer  that  they 
carried  with  them  also  their  legends.  But  this  is  not  only  a  perfectly 
reasonable  supposition;  it  can  also  be  satisfactorily  proved  to  be 
a  fact. 

Before  leaving  the  subject  of  migrations  let  me  digress  to  say 
here  that  what  is  true  of  Syria  in  its  relation  to  Egypt  and  Baby¬ 
lonia,  is  true  of  Syria  in  its  connections  with  other  lands,  such  as 
South  Arabia,  Greece,  and  Italy.  It  is  generally  admitted  for 
example  that  extensive  religious  influences  from  Amurru  were  felt 
in  Italy;  but  it  is  also  admitted,  that  land  gave  practically  nothing 
in  return  to  Syria.  This  movement  in  the  direction  of  Italy  is 
well  attested.  Not  only  did  Italy  import  grain  and  industrial 
objects  from  Syria,  but  soldiers,  workmen,  and  slaves.  The  unprec- 

One  occurrence  of  a  name  compounded  with  En-Urta  is  found  in  the  texts  of 
the  previous  period.  See  Barton,  UMBS  IX  1,  58:1:7. 


60 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


edented  wealth  and  splendor  of  Rome  also  became  very  attractive 
to  the  merchant  and  mercenary,  as  well  as  to  the  excess  population; 
so  that  there  was  an  extensive  movement  toward  Italy.  The  migra¬ 
tion  of  S3n:*ians  to  this  land,  Professor  Cumont  informs  us,  who  were 
faithful  to  their  deities,  is  responsible  for  the  great  religious  influ¬ 
ence  that  this  part  of  the  Orient  exerted  upon  the  Roman  religion; 
but  on  the  other  hand,  he  informs  us,  Rome  has  given  Syria  nothing 
in  return. 

This  review  of  invasions,  conquests,  and  migrations,  based  on  the 
testimony  of  the  monuments,  establishes  fully  the  proposed  prin¬ 
ciples  laid  down  in  connection  with  the  spread  of  cultural  ideas  and 
of  religious  influences.  This  being  true,  and  with  the  knowledge 
that  the  migratory  current  was  from  Amurru  to  Babylonia,  and 
not  vice  versa,  it  follows  that  the  Amorite  religions  hd,ve  influenced 
those  of  Babylonia,  the  land  which  lies  on  its  border.  This,  as  we 
have  seen,  is  fully  borne  out  by  excavations  and  research.  And 
this,  I  maintain,  is  an  exceedingly  important  argument  in  showing 
that  the  religious  literature,  including  the  creation  and  deluge 
stories,  which  Amurru  and  Babylonia  had  in  common,  had  its  origin 
in  Amurru,  whence  it  was  carried  with  the  migrating  Semites  into 
Babylonia. 

The  second  argument  that  I  desire  to  use  in  connection  with  my 
thesis  is  based  on  a  study  of  climatic  conditions  in  Babylonia  and 
Ami&ru,  as  well  as  of  the  forced  which  are  credited  with  having 
given  rise  to  the  so-called  nature-myths,  the  stories  of  the  creation 
and  the  deluge. 

The  theory  of  the  Babylonian  origin  of  the  Hebrew  story  of 
creation  is  largely  based  upon  the  idea  that  it  symbolizes  the 
change  of  seasons  from  winter  to  spring;  and  that  this  nature- 
myth  had  its  origin  in  the  heavy  winter  rains,  when  the  land  was 

3*  Cumont,  Oriental  Religions  in  Roman  Paganism  8  f. 


II.  THE  FOURFOLD  ARGUMENT. 


61 


flooded,  which  were  followed  by  spring,  when  life  again  appeared. 
Likewise  the  theory  of  the  Babylonian  origin  of  the  deluge  story  has 
for  its  basis  the  idea  of  ^Hhe  yearly  phenomenon  of  the  rainy  and 
stormy  season,  which  lasts  in  Babylonia  for  several  months,  during 
which  time  whole  districts  in  the  Euphrates  valley  are  submerged. 

In  the  chapters  which  follow  I  shall  show  that  these  theories, 
which  are  so  vital  to  the  position  of  the  Babylonist,  are  based  on  a 
complete  misunderstanding  of  climatic  conditions  in  Babylonia. 
Moreover,  I  think  it  can  be  conclusively  shown  that  the  force  in 
nature  which  is  said  to  have  given  rise  to  these  stories,  reflects  not 
the  climate  of  Babylonia,  but  that  of  Amurru. 

The  third  argument  I  propose  using  in  establishing  my  thesis  is 
based  on  the  study  of  the  names  of  deities  and  persons  found  in 
the  texts  involved.  This,  in  my  judgment,  is  perhaps  the  most 
important  of  the  four  arguments  used.  Having  already  assembled 
in  publications  perhaps  twenty-five  thousand  names,  gathered  from 
the  nomenclature  of  the  cuneiform  tablets  covering  several  millen¬ 
niums,^®  it  is  possible  from  a  study  of  them  to  ascertain  influences, 
as  well  as  migrations,  that  have  taken  place,  in  a  most  remarkable 
manner.  On  a  basis  of  the  study  of  the  foreign  names  in  the 
nomenclature  of  Babylonia,  without  any  other  data,  it  would  be 
possible  to  reconstruct  considerable  history  of  the  movements  of 
ancient  peoples  into  that  land. 

In  the  earliest  dynastic  lists  now  known,  we  find  Amorites  and 
other  foreign  peoples  ruling  Babylonia.  In  the  collection  of  names 
belonging  to  the  Akkad  an(J^r  dynasties,  as  we  have  seen,  we  find 
large  numbers  of  Amorite  and  other  foreign  names.  In  the  Nisin-  ^ 

t 

35  See  Dhorme,  Bei.  zur  Assyr.  VI  2,  63  ff.;  Huber,  Personennamen;  Ranke, 
Early  Babylonian  Personal  Names;  Clay,  Personal  Names  of  the  Cassite  Period; 
Tallqvist,  Assyrian  Personal  Names;  Tallqvist,  N eohahylonisches  Namenbuch;  and 
the  indices  to  many  volumes  of  texts. 


62 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


Larsa-Babylon  contemporaneous  dynasties,  there  is  a  great  influx  of 
Western  Semites.  In  the  Cassite  period  (1700-1200  B.  C.),  these 
are  reduced  to  a  minimum,  but  in  place  of  them  we  find  the  nomen¬ 
clature  full  of  Cassite  and  Hittite-Mitannian  names.  In  the  Neo- 
Babylonian  period  we  find  hundreds  of  J ewish  names ;  in  the  Persian 
period  these  have  greatly  multiplied,  when  large  numbers  of  Persian 
names  are  found,  including  many  Egyptian.  In  the  Greek  period, 
many  Greek  names  are  found. 

We  know  that  the  Amorites  subjugated  Babylonia;  that  the 
Hittites  invaded  it;  that  the  Cassites,  Persians,  and  Greeks  in 
certain  periods  also  ruled  the  land,  and  that  the  Jews  were  carried 
into  exile  to  Babylonia.  The  nomenclature  reflects  all  these  move¬ 
ments,  and  corroborates  perfectly  the  historical  data  which  have 
already  come  to  light. 

In  the  previous  chapter  we  have  seen  the  importance  of  such 
studies,  how  when,  following  the  discovery  that  the  name  Amurru 
was  written  ^wr  {IJru)  in  Aramaic,  it  was  conjectured  on  the  basis 
of  this,  as  well  as  the  study  of  the  names  of  the  Nisin  dynasty, 
that  the  djmasty  was  Amorite;  which  has  since  been  definitely 
corroborated. 

Another  instance  that  might  be  cited  as  regards  the  importance 
of  these  studies  is  the  bearing  that  a  single  name  often  has  which 
occurs  in  a  text.  For  example,  in  the  well-known  Gilgamesh  epic 
the  hero  fights  an  enemy  in  the  cedar  forests,  who  was  called  Hum- 
baba,  which  name  is  also  written  Hubaba.  The  scenes  of  this 
conflict  have  for  years  been  placed  in  Elam,  not  because  we  know 
that  a  single  cedar  tree  ever  grew  there,  but  because  of  the  resem¬ 
blance  of  the  name  Humbaba  to  that  of  the  Elamite  god  Humba, 
which  is  variously  written,  as  Humman,  Humba,  Humban,  Um- 
man,  Umba,  etc.  It  will  be  noticed  that  in  no  instance  is  there  a 
reduplication  of  the  consonant  h  in  the  god’s  name,  as  in  Humbaba. 
Upon  this  identification,  emphasis  also  was  placed  upon  the  epic 


II.  THE  FOURFOLD  ARGUMENT. 


63 


being  based  upon  a  myth,  being  in  part  astral,  it  was  said,  and  in 
part  a  nature-myth. 

Scholars  years  ago  called  attention  to  a  name  which  closely 
resembled  it,  found  in  a  legend  of  Lucian,  concerning  the  building 
of  the  temple  at  Hierapolis,  which  was  in  the  land  where  cedars 
grew;  but  nevertheless  scholars  continued  to  identify  the  character 
as  an  Elamite  god. 

The  recent  discovery  of  the  name  written  Huwawa  on  the  early 
version  of  the  epic  found  in  the  Yale  Collection;  the  recent  discov¬ 
ery  also  that  Humbaba  was  a  usurper  who  had  humiliated  Baby¬ 
lonia,  as  determined  from  an  omen  text  in  the  Pierpont  Morgan 
Collection;  and  the  occurrence  of  the  name  in  the  Amorite  Name 
Syllabary  found  at  Nippur,  have  now  definitely  established  the 
fact  that  Humbaba  was  an  Amorite  king  whose  palace  was  in  the 
cedar  forests  of  Lebanon.^® 

I  have  cited  this  instance  to  show  how  important  is  the  correct 
identification  of  a  single  name  in  a  legend ;  for  in  many  publications 
Humbaba  is  regarded  as  a  god  of  Elam,  where  cedar  forests  are 
supposed  to  have  grown;  all  of  which  was  based  upon  this  identi¬ 
fication,  which  is  now  proved  incorrect.  Naturally  if  an  ancient 
legend  were  discovered  and  it  contained  but  a  single  name,  say  for 
example  Agamemnon,  unless  there  was  scenery  that  unquestionably 
reflected  another  land,  scholars  would  have  little  hesitation  in 
giving  their  view  of  its  origin.  In  using  this  argument  based  on 
the  study  of  names  in  connection  with  the  creation  and  deluge 
stories,  I  might  add  that  it  will  be  seen  that  conclusions  rest  not 
upon  a  single  name,  but  upon  many. 

The  fourth  argument  that  I  wish  to  use  in  my  efforts  to  prove 
the  Amorite  origin  of  these  stories  is  based  on  a  study  of  certain 

36  See  Empire  of  the  Amorites  87  f;  Jastrow-Clay,  An  Early  Version  of  the  Gilgor 
mesh  Epic  p.  23;  and  A  Hebrew  Deluge  Story  49  f. 


64 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


literary  and  linguistic  evidence  found  in  them.  I  fully  appreciate 
that  here  there  will  be  a  difference  of  opinion  expressed.  This  will 
largely  arise  from  the  fact  that  my  point  of  view  is  totally  different 
from  that  of  most  Assyriologists  as  regards  the  relative  position  of 
the  Babylonian  language  in  the  Semitic  group. 

The  prevailing  view  is  that  the  Babylonian  or  Akkadian  language 
antedates  the  Amorite  group  (^.  e.,  Hebrew,  Phoenician,  and 
Aramaic)  by  many  centuries;  and  that,  generally  speaking,  when 
these  languages  have  words  in  common  with  the  Babylonian,  espe¬ 
cially  when  they  are  not  found  in  Arabic,  they  have  had  their  origin 
in  Babylonia.  This  understanding  is  due  to  a  number  of  reasons. 

Arabia,  as  already  stated,  is  considered  by  these  scholars  to  be 
^^the  home  of  the  Semites,’’  and  its  language  is  the  source  of  all  in  the 
Semitic  group.  Syria  and  Palestine  received  their  first  Semitic 
peoples  from  Arabia  about  2500  B.  C.  The  civihzation  of  Syria 
and  Palestine  was  therefore  of  comparatively  late  development, 
and  was  extensively  influenced  by  the  Babylonian. 

My  own  understanding  of  the  situation  is  totally  different.  The 
cradle  of  the  Semites  may  have  rocked  in  Arabia;  this  may  even 
have  occurred  at  the  North  Pole,  where  some  Indo-European 
scholars  think  Aryan  had  its  origin.  I  only  know  that  it  is  now 
proved  that  the  antiquity  of  the  civilization  of  Amurru  synchronizes 
with  the  earliest  found  in  Eg5rpt  and  Babylonia.  I  believe  that 
excavations  in  Syria  will  reveal  the  fact  that  its  civilization  greatly 
antedated  that  of  Egypt  and  Babylonia.  Further,  I  know  that 
there  is  no  basis  for  the  Arabian  wave  theory  of  migrations  to 
account  for  the  Semitic  inhabitants  of  Amurru  and  Babylonia;  and 
I  believe,  as  already  mentioned,  that  Amorites,  who  as  we  definitely 
know  did  migrate  in  all  early  periods  into  the  Babylonian  alluvium, 
furnished  it  with  its  Semitic  inhabitants.  Doubtless  many  Arabs 
also  trekked  in  from  the  desert  at  the  same  time;  but  of  this  we 
have  no  evidence.  Further,  I  believe  that  what  we  call  Semitic 


II.  THE  FOURFOLD  ARGUMENT. 


65 


Babylonian  is  a  dialect  of  the  Amorite  language  under  the  influence 
of  the  Sumerians,  who  introduced  their  script  in  the  land,  and  who 
are  probably  responsible  for  many  of  the  grammatical  peculiarities 
of  the  Babylonian  language.  In  other  words,  I  believe  that  the 
Babylonian  is  a  broken  down  Amorite  language  which  in  all  periods, 
due  to  migrations,  was  influenced  by  the  mother  tongue. 

To  give  here  all  my  reasons  for  this  understanding  of  the  language, 
is  impossible,  and  also  unnecessary.  I  have  simply  given  my  view 
of  the  origin  of  the  language  for  the  purpose  of  showing  why  scholars 
will  differ,  at  least  as  regards  some  of  the  linguistic  evidence  which 
I  propose  to  offer  for  the  Amorite  origin  of  the  creation  and  deluge 
stories.  I  shall  give  some  examples,  however,  which  are  beyond 
any  cavil;  but  until  the  relation  of  the  Hebrew  and  Babylonian 
languages  is  viewed  differently  than  it  is  at  present,  it  is  expected 
that  many  will  refuse  to  accept  the  conclusion  that  a  word  is  foreign 
when  it  has  been  met  with  in  Babylonian  literature,  even  if  it  is 
well  known  in  the  Amorite  group.  It  does  not  matter  to  them 
whether  it  is  obsolete,  or  it  is  alone  found  in  a  list  of  words  where 
it  is  explained  by  a  well-known  Babylonian  word.  Nor  does  it 
matter  whether  the  root  of  the  word  has  a  wide  extended  use  in 
Hebrew  or  Aramaic,  and  is  not  found  in  Babylonian,  except  in  the 
text  of  the  story  under  consideration.  Fortunately  I  can  produce 
some  linguistic  and  some  literary  evidences  which  lie  beyond  the 
possibility  of  such  opposition. 


Ill 


THE  CREATION  STORY 

It  is  generally  admitted  that  certain  parallel  ideas  which  are 
found  expressed  in  the  literature  of  ancient  Israel  concerning  the 
creation  of  the  world,  and  in  a  story  of  creation  as  handed  down 
by  the  Babylonians,  have  had  a  common  origin.  These  embrace 
the  ideas  that  prior  to  the  creation  a  watery  chaos  existed ;  that 
the  deep  was  personified  by  a  monster,  designated  as  Tehom  and 
Tiamat;  that  Jehovah  or  Marduk  went  forth  to  battle  with  this 
monster,  who  was  slain ;  after  which  the  firmament,  the  luminaries, 
and  man  were  created.  These  and  other  points  of  resemblance,  it 
is  generally  admitted,  leave  no  doubt  as  to  there  being  a  relation¬ 
ship  between  the  cosmogony  of  Israel  and  that  handed  down  by 
the  Babylonians.  It  naturally  followed  that  either  the  Biblical 
conception  was  borrowed  from  the  Babylonian;  or  the  Babylonian 
was  borrowed  from  the  Biblical;  or  both  were  founded  on  a  common 
primitive  source. 

Scholars  generally  have  dismissed  the  second  supposition  as  an 
impossibility;  and  the  third  is  excluded  on  the  ground  that  the 
stories  contain  a  large  percentage  of  Babylonian  ideas.  The 
Biblical  conception  of  creation,  therefore,  they  say,  is  of  Babylonian 
origin. 

George  Smith,  who  found  and  translated  for  the  first  time  many 
of  the  fragments  of  the  Babylonian  story,  took  the  position  that  it 
originated  in  Babylonia.  This  was  also  the  view  of  Professor 
Sayce,  another  of  the  pioneers  in  this  field  of  research,  who  later 
wrote  concerning  the  subject:  “The  elements  indeed  of  the  Hebrew 
cosmology  are  all  Babylonian;  even  the  creative  word  itself  was  a 
Babylonian  conception,  as  the  story  of  Merodach  has  shown  us.^^^ 

'  Religions  of  Babylonia  and  Assyria  p.  395. 

(66) 


III.  THE  CREATION  STORY. 


67 


In  the  nearly  fifty  years  which  have  passed  since  the  first  transla¬ 
tion  was  made,  this  has  become  the  prevailing  view;  and  it  has  been 
generally  accepted  everywhere  as  fully  established.  ^^In  fact/^  as 
the  late  Canon  Driver  has  written,  ^^no  archaeologist  questions  that 
the  Biblical  cosmogony,  however  altered  in  form  and  stripped  of  its 
original  polytheism,  is,  in  its  main  outlines,  derived  from  Babylonia. 

Before  considering  the  arguments  for  and  against  this  theory, 
let  us  briefly  review  the  sources  of  our  knowledge  of  the  Biblical 
and  Babylonian  cosmological  ideas. 

One  of  the  results  of  the  literary  analysis  of  the  Old  Testament 
is  that  scholars  generally  accept  the  view  that  there  are  two  creation 
stories  in  Genesis,  the  second  of  which  begins  in  the  middle  of  the 
fourth  verse  of  the  second  chapter.  As  is  well  known,  there  are 
other  passages  in  the  poetical  books  of  the  Old  Testament  which 
give  us  additional  light  upon  Israel’s  conception  of  the  creation, 
especially  those  which  refer  to  a  struggle  between  Yahweh  and  a 
being  who  is  regarded  as  having  personified  the  primaeval  ocean. 
Several  different  names  of  this  monster  are  found,  as  Tehom, 
Rahab,  Leviathan,  Dragon  {tannin)  and  Serpent  (nakhash).  The 
first  mentioned  is  the  same  word  which  is  found  in  the  second  verse 
of  Genesis  and  elsewhere  in  tbe  Old  Testament,  where  it  is  trans¬ 
lated  “deep.” 

In  some  of  these  poetical  passages  a  leading  thought  can  clearly 
be  traced:  namely,  that  Yahweh  had  a  great  conflict  with  this 
being,  after  whose  defeat  the  heavens  and  the  earth  were  created. 
In  this  conflict  we  learn  that  the  hostile  creature  had  helpers,  who 
were  also  overcome.  In  some  passages,  however,  the  monster 
represented  a  nation  which  was  unfriendly  to  Israel. 

The  more  important  of  all  these  passages  which  have  been  pre¬ 
viously  assembled  by  GunkeL  and  others,  follow : 

*  Driver,  TJie  Book  of  Genesis,  p.  30. 

*  See  Gunkel,  Schopfung  und  Chaos  29  ff. 


68 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


Psalm  89 : 9  ff . 

When  the  waves  thereof  arise,  thou  (Yahweh)  stillest  them. 

Thou  hast  broken  Rahab  in  pieces  as  one  that  is  slain; 

Thou  hast  scattered  thine  enemies  with  the  arm  of  thy  strength. 

The  heavens  are  thine,  the  earth  is  also  thine: 

The  world  and  the  fulness  thereof,  thou  hast  founded  them. 

The  north  and  the  south,  thou  hast  created  them. 

Isaiah  51 : 9  f . 

Put  on  strength,  O  arm  of  Yahweh; 

Arise  as  in  the  days  of  old,  the  generation  of  ancient  times. 

Art  thou  not  he  who  cut  Rahab  in  pieces,  pierced  the  Dragon? 

Art  thou  not  he  who  dried  up  the  sea,  the  waters  of  the  great  Tehom, 
Who  made  the  depths  of  the  sea  a  way  to  pass  over? 

Job  26:12  f. 

He  stirreth  up  the  sea  with  his  power. 

And  by  his  understanding  he  smiteth  through  Rahab. 

By  his  spirit  the  heavens  are  garnished ; 

His  hand  hath  pierced  the  swift  Serpent. 

Psahn  74 : 13  f . 

Thou  didst  divide  the  sea  by  thy  strength: 

Thou  breakest  the  heads  of  the  Dragon  in  the  waters. 

Thou  breakest  the  heads  of  Leviathan  in  pieces. 

Thou  gavest  him  to  be  food  to  the  people  inhabiting  the  wilderness, 
Thou  didst  cleave  fountain  and  flood; 

Thou  driest  up  mighty  rivers. 

The  day  is  thine,  the  night  is  also  thine: 

Thou  hast  prepared  the  light  and  the  sun. 

Thou  hast  set  all  the  boundaries  of  the  earth : 

Thou  hast  made  summer  and  winter. 

Isaiah  27 : 1 

In  that  day  Yahweh  with  his  hard  and  great  and  strong  sword  will 
punish  Leviathan  the  swift  serpent,  and  Leviathan  the  crooked 
serpent,  and  he  will  slay  the  Dragon  that  is  in  the  sea. 

Isaiah  30:7 

For  Egypt  helpeth  in  vain  and  to  no  purpose 
Therefore  have  I  called  her  Rahab  that  sitteth  still. 

Psalm  87:4 

Rahab  and  Babylon  I  proclaim  my  votaries. 


HI.  THE  CREATION  STORY. 


69 


Besides  these  passages  there  are  others  which  refer  to  Tehom, 
Rahab,  etc."*  Primarily,  the  monster  personifies  the  primaeval 
waters,  but  several  passages  show  that  it  symbolically  represents 
an  unfriendly  power.  Egypt  especially  figures  in  this  capacity. 
This  fact  reminds  us  of  the  Phoenician  legend  of  Sanchuniathon, 
in  which  we  learn  that  the  god  ^^Kronos  (El),  visiting  the  country 
of  the  south,  gave  all  Egypt  to  the  god  Taautus  (Tiamat),  that  it 
might  be  his  kingdom.’^® 

These,  as  well  as  other  passages,  show  that  in  Israel  the  belief 
existed  that  there  had  been  a  great  conflict  prior  to  the  creation 
of  the  heavens  and  the  earth,  between  Yahweh  and  a  primaeval 
monster,  with  whom  were  associated  other  beings  termed  dragons. 
Some  seem  to  think  that  this  conflict  underlies  the  thought  expressed 
in  the  second  verse  of  Genesis,  because  of  the  use  of  the  word  tehom. 
However,  certain  of  these  passages,  as  already  mentioned,  also  show 
that  this  monster  symbolically  represented  an  unfriendly  nation; 
the  same,  as  we  shall  find,  was  the  case  also  in  Babylonian  literature. 

Throughout  the  Old  Testament  the  word  tehdm  has  the  meaning 
‘^deep,’’  as  well  as  ‘^the  primaeval  waters,^^  and  their  personifica¬ 
tion.  It  is  generally  held  by  Babylonists  that  such  a  crude  concep¬ 
tion  as  the  strife  between  Yahweh  and  the  monster,  which  idea  was 
borrowed  from  Babylonia,  was  not  tolerated  in  the  creation  story, 
as  it  jarred  upon  the  purer  theological  conceptions  and  in  conse¬ 
quence  was  suppressed.  The  idea,  however,  of  the  firmament,  to 
keep  back  the  waters,  was  retained. 

Eusebius  has  handed  down  some  fragments  of  the  Phoenician 
cosmogony  by  Sanchuniathon,  which  he  found  in  the  writings  of 
Philo  of  Byblos.  In  this  Phoenician  cosmogony,  we  are  told  that 
^^as  the  first  principle  of  the  universe  he  posits  murky,  windy  air, 

<  See  Deut.  33:13;  Job  9:11  ff;  38:16  f;  Psalms  36:6;  41:19;  42:7;  77:16  f; 
91:13;  97:7;  Prov.  3:20;  Isaiah  4:6;  Ezekiel  29:3;  Amos  7:4;  etc. 

^  Cory,  Ancient  Fragments  p.  16. 


70 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


or  a  breath  of  murky  air,  and  turbid  chaos,  dark  as  Erebus;  these 
were  infinite  and  throughout  a  long  lapse  of  time  limitless”  (see 
Appendix  C). 

These  stories  from  Amurru,  including  the  Biblical  cosmological 
expressions,  it  is  generally  held,  make  everything  emanate  from  a 
watery  chaos.  It  is  this  idea  that  the  Babylonists  have  asserted 
was  borrowed  from  Babylonia. 

As  is  so  well  known,  the  Babylonians  have  handed  down  several 
creation  stories  written  in  Semitic  and  Sumerian;  but  only  one  has 
any  relation  to  this  conception  as  handed  down  by  the  Hebrews; 
that  is,  the  one  which  they  called  Enuma  elish,  ‘^When  above”, 
which  are  the  first  two  words  of  the  story. 

One  recension  of  this  myth  was  written  on  seven  tablets,  and 
deposited  in  the  library  of  Ashurbanipal.  These,  together  with 
some  fragments  written  in  the  Neo-Babylonian  and  Persian  periods, 
have  reached  the  British  Museum  in  a  fragmentary  condition;  and 
have  been  studied  for  years,  and  translated  many  times. 

During  the  excavations  of  the  German  Oriental  Society  at  the 
city  of  Ashur,  some  few  years  ago,  portions  of  another  recension, 
written  several  centuries  earlier,  were  found.  These  tablets  and 
fragments  fortunately  fill  some  important  gaps  in  the  narrative 
previously  published.  A  complete  translation  of  all  the  parts 
that  have  been  recovered  is  given  in  Appendix  A. 

The  composite  character  of  the  creation  story,  as  handed  down 
by  the  Babylonians,  was  recognized  years  ago.  During  the  long 
process  of  editing,  especially  after  it  had  been  made  a  paean  in 
honor  of  Marduk,  many  modifications  had  taken  place.  It  was 
also  recognized  years  ago  that  two  different  conflicts  were  embodied 
in  the  narrative;  and  also  that  in  it  two  or  more  versions  were 
harmonized. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  discuss  here  these  theories,  nor  the  process 
that  has  resulted  in  the  many  changes  and  difficulties  that  are 


III.  THE  CREATION  STORY. 


71 


found  in  the  story.  ^  Suffice  it  to  say  that  there  are  two  conflicts 
set  forth  in  the  epic;  the  one  is  found  in  the  first  seventy-seven 
lines,  and  is  immediately  followed  by  the  second.  The  first  resulted 
in  the  slaying  of  the  primaeval  Apsu  by  Ea;  and  the  second,  of 
his  consort,  Tiamat,  by  Marduk.  An  outline  of  the  first  conflict 
is  as  follows: 

Before  the  heavens  were  named  and  the  dry  ground  was  gathered 
together,  the  primaeval  creators  Apsu  and  Tiamat  begat  the  gods 
Lakhmu  and  Lakhamu,  who  in  turn  begat  Anshar  and  Kishar;  and 
these  brought  forth  Anu,  who  begat  Ea.  The  gods  annoyed  the 
primaeval  Apsu  and  Tiamat  by  their  deeds.  With  Mummu,  his 
messenger,  Apsu  went  to  Tiamat  with  a  plan  to  destroy  them; 
but  Tiamat  was  opposed  to  this. 

The  all-wise  Ea,  perceiving  the  plan  of  Apsu,  cunningly  applied 
an  incantation,  which  resulted  in  Apsu  being  overcome  by  sleep; 
when  Ea  bound  and  slew  him.  Mummu,  who  then  became  violent, 
was  also  killed. 

Ea  then  established  upon  Apsu  his  dwelling.  In  his  chamber  he 
rested  peacefully.  He  named  it  a'psu;  and  he  founded  shrines. 
Around  its  place  he  established  his  dry  ground  {giparrii). 

The  story  of  the  second  conflict,  beginning  with  the  seventy- 
eighth  line,  has  been  edited  to  glorify  Marduk,  the  god  of  Babylon ; 
and  also  in  the  interests  of  the  god  Ashur.  The  story  of  the  fight 
is  greatly  drawn  out  by  repetitions.  An  outline  of  it  follows: 

Lakhmu  and  Lakhamu,  in  the  abode  of  the  fates,  in  the  midst  of 
the  apsuy  begat  Anshar  and  Kishar.  The  primaeval  deities  sought 
vengeance  because  Apsu,  their  begetter,  had  been  slain.  They 
banded  together  at  the  side  of  the  fuming  and  raging  Tiamat,  and 
prepared  for  battle.  We  then  learn  that  Tiamat,  under  the  title 
Ummu-khubur,  ^‘mother  of  the  assembly,^’  who  formed  all  things,’’ 
bore  monster  serpents,  sharp  of  tooth,  and  merciless  of  attack. 
She  filled  their  bodies  with  venom  instead  of  blood.  She  created 


72 


THE  OKIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


vipers,  dragons,  raging  hounds,  hurricanes,  tempests,  etc.,  to  assist 
her.  She  took  Kingu  for  her  spouse,  and  exalted  him  by  giving 
him  the  tablets  of  destiny,  and  the  power  of  deity  {anutu). 

The  all-wise  Ea,  also  perceiving  this  plot,  went  and  informed 
Anshar,  his  father.  He  said:  ^‘Tiamat,  who  begat  us,  hates  us’’; 
^^and  all  the  gods  have  turned  to  her.”  Anshar  sent  Anu  to  stand 
before  Tiamat,  that  her  spirit  might  be  appeased,  and  her  heart  be 
merciful;  but  Anu  could  not  withstand  her  awful  visage  and  her 
mutterings.  Whereupon,  Marduk  rejoiced  his  father  by  asking  to 
be  allowed  to  accomplish  all  that  was  within  his  heart,  when  he 
said:  ^Hf  I,  your  avenger,  enchain  Tiamat,  and  give  you  life,  pro¬ 
claim  an  assembly,  and  exalt  my  destiny.” 

Anshar  requested  Gaga,  his  messenger,  to  repeat  everything 
before  the  gods,  his  fathers,  and  to  make  ready  a  banquet  for  them, 
that  they  might  decree  the  fate  of  Marduk.  When  Lakhmu  and 
Lakhamu  heard  what  was  going  on,  they  cried  aloud;  and  the 
Igigi  wailed  bitterly. 

The  gods  assembled;  they  ate  and  drank;  they  prepared  for 
Marduk  a  lordly  chamber;  they  proclaimed  him  chief  among  the 
great  gods.  They  said:  ^‘Thy  word  is  Anu,”  “we  give  thee  sover¬ 
eignty  over  the  whole  world.”  They  set  a  garment  in  their  midst; 
Marduk  was  told  to  give  the  command,  and  it  vanished;  then  to 
give  another,  when  it  returned.  They  bestowed  sceptre,  throne, 
and  ring  upon  him. 

Marduk  chose  his  weapons;  he  set  the  lightning  in  front  of  him; 
with  a  burning  flame  he  filled  his  body;  he  stationed  the  four  winds 
behind  him;  he  created  an  evil  wind,  the  tempest  and  hurricanes; 
he  raised  the  thunderbolts;  he  mounted  his  chariot,  yoked  with 
four  horses,  and  advanced  toward  the  raging  Tiamat;  to  whom, 
while  she  uttered  rebellious  words,  he  gave  the  challenge  for  the 
combat.  She  was  like  one  possessed;  she  lost  her  reason,  and 
uttered  wild  piercing  cries;  she  pronounced  her  spell. 


III.  THE  CKEATION  STORY. 


73 


Marduk  spread  out  his  net  and  caught  her;  he  let  loose  the  evil 
wind  in  her  face.  As  she  opened  her  mouth,  he  drove  it  in,  and  it 
filled  her  body,  which  with  his  spear  he  burst.  When  Tiamat  was 
slain,  her  host  of  helpers  scattered  to  save  their  lives;  but  Marduk 
took  them  captive  with  his  net,  and  broke  their  weapons. 

He  took  ^Hhe  tablets  of  destiny’’  from  Kingu,  and  slew  him.  He 
then  stood  upon  Tiamat’ s  hinder  parts,  and  with  his  merciless  club, 
smashed  her  skull.  He  split  her  open  like  a  flat  fish  into  two  halves; 
with  one  half  of  her  he  estabhshed  a  covering  for  heaven.  He  fixed 
a  bolt;  he  stationed  a  watchman;  he  bade  them  not  to  let  her 
waters  come  forth;  and  he  placed  the  dwelling  of  Ea  over  against 
the  apsii.  This,  in  brief,  is  the  story  of  the  fight  between  Marduk 
and  Tiamat. 

In  meeting  all  the  arguments  that  have  been  presented  by  Baby- 
lonists,  as  well  as  all  that  can  be  offered  in  order  to  substantiate  the 
idea  that  the  cosmology,  as  found  in  the  Old  Testament,  and  in  the 
Enuma  elish,  originated  in  Babylonia,  and  in  presenting  my  own 
proof  that  it  emanated  from  Amurru,  I  will  follow  the  four 
arguments  outlined  in  Chapter  II. 

The  first  of  these  has  been  fully  presented,  namely,  that  since 
migrations  from  Babylonia  to  Amurru  are  not  known  to  have  taken 
place,  religious  influences  from  Babylonia  should  not  have  been 
felt  in  that  land;  and  since  migrations  in  all  periods  from  Amurru 
into  the  adjoining  alluvial  plain  are  known  to  have  taken  place, 
religious  influences  from  Amurru  should  have  been  felt  in  the  land ; 
and,  moreover,  that  these  postulates  have  been  fully  borne  out  by 
excavations  and  research.  It  follows,  therefore,  that  the  religious 
literature,  which  Amurru  and  Babylonia  had  in  common,  if  it  had 
its  origin  in  either  country,  was  certainly  carried  by  the  migrating 
Semites  into  Babylonia  from  Amurru. 

As  the  second  step  in  the  consideration  of  this  problem  let  us 
now  proceed  to  present  the  proofs  that  have  been  advanced  for  the 


74 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


Babylonian  origin  of  the  myth.  In  searching  the  literature  on  the 
subject,  I  find  that  there  have  practically  been  offered  but  two  argu¬ 
ments,  one  bearing  on  climate,  and  the  other  on  numbers,  which  are 
fully  considered  in  what  follows. 

The  second  of  the  two  arguments  that  have  been  offered,  which  I 
think  will  be  found  to  be  rather  negligible,  is  based  on  the  division 
of  the  creation  days  into  seven,  i.  e.,  six  of  creation  and  the  sabbath, 
which  is  the  same  as  the  number  of  tablets  on  which  the  Enuma 
elish,  or  the  Babylonian  story,  was  written,  namely  seven.  This 
argument  has  been  repeated  many  times,  though  not  by  all  Baby- 
lonists;  and  has  been  quite  recently  emphasized  by  Professor 
Barton,  who  says:  ^^Each  account  is  arranged  in  a  series  of  sevens, 
the  Babylonian  in  seven  tablets,  the  Hebrew  in  seven  days.  Each 
of  them  places  the  creation  of  man  in  the  sixth  division  of  its  series. 
.  .  .  The  creation  of  the  firmament  he  [the  J.  writer]  transposes 
from  the  fourth  tablet  to  the  second  day ;  the  intrigues  of  the  gods 
of  tablet  three  are  replaced  by  the  appearance  of  the  dry  land  and  the 
growth  of  grass,  and  the  creation  of  the  heavenly  bodies  is  taken 
from  the  fifth  tablet  and  placed  on  the  fourth  day.^’® 

It  should  be  stated  here  that  the  Babylonian  story  makes  no 
reference  to  the  creation  of  vegetation,  birds,  and  fishes;  nor  does 
it  refer  to  beasts  and  reptiles,  except  those  created  to  help  Tiamat 
in  her  conflict. 

There  can  be  little  doubt  that  prior  to  the  time  when  the  Marduk 
schoolmen  used  the  epic  to  glorify  their  deity,  when  the  vain  repe¬ 
titions  were  doubtless  introduced,  and  the  stolen  titles  of  other  gods 
were  added  to  those  of  Marduk,  the  epic  had  been  written  on  fewer 
tablets;  yet  we  are  asked  to  believe  that  the  division  of  the  Hebrew 
story  of  creation  into  six  days  and  the  sabbath,  originated  in  the 
number  of  tablets  it  required  to  hold  this  epic,  because  we  find  in 


®  See  Barton,  Jour.  Bib.  Lit.  XL  (1921)  93  f. 


III.  THE  CREATION  STORY. 


75 


each  instance  the  number  seven/’  and  the  fact  that  the  creation 
of  man  in  both  instances  is  connected  with  the  number  ^^six.”  I 
do  not  think  it  necessary  to  multiply  words  as  regards  this  argument 
for  the  Babylonian  origin  of  the  Biblical  story  of  creation;  let  us 
tabulate,  however,  the  acts  of  creation  for  the  six  days  in  the 
Hebrew  story,  and  what  the  seven  tablets  contain. 


Biblical  Story 

Day  1 :  Heavens,  earth,  and  light  cre¬ 
ated. 

Day  2:  Firmament  created. 

Day  3 :  Gathering  of  waters :  ground 
and  vegetation  seen. 

Day  4:  Sun,  moon,  and  stars  created. 

Day  5 :  Birds  and  fishes  created. 

Day  6  :  Beasts,  reptiles,  and  man  cre¬ 
ated. 

Day  7 :  The  Sabbath. 


The  Seven  Tablets 

1:  Ea-Apsu  conflict;  apsiX  estab¬ 
lished.  Marduk-Tiamat 
fight. 

2:  The  fight  continued. 

3 :  The  fight  continued. 

4:  The  fight  continued;  firma¬ 
ment  established. 

5 :  Appointment  of  the  stations  of 
the  gods,  stars,  luminaries, 
divisions  of  year. 

6:  Creation  of  man.  Titles  of 
Marduk. 

7 :  Titles  of  Marduk. 


Now  let  us  face  the  one  all-important  argument  that  has  been 
offered  for  the  Babylonian  origin  of  the  Hebrew  story.  It  is  re¬ 
garded  as  a  nature-myth  which  had  its  origin  in  the  heavy  rains  and 
the  annual  inundations.  The  myth,  in  other  words,  S3anbolizes, 
we  are  told,  ‘Hhe  change  of  seasons  from  winter  to  spring.” 

Professor  Zimmern  of  Leipzig,  in  following  Professor  Jensen,  pre¬ 
sented  the  argument  thus:  the  Babylonian  would  say  to  himself, 
^The  world  must  first  have  come  into  being  just  as  it  still  comes 
into  being  year  by  year  and  day  by  day.  Just  as  in  every  spring 
Marduk,  god  of  the  spring  sun,  calls  forth  the  level  land  that  has 
been  flooded  by  the  winter  rains,  the  deep,  or  Tiamat,  so  in  the  first 


76 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


spring,  at  the  first  New  Year,  the  world  came  into  being  after  a 
combat  between  Marduk  and  Tiamat.’”^ 

The  late  Professor  Driver  of  Oxford,  following  Professors  Jastrow 
and  Zimmern,  summed  up  the  argument  thus:  ^‘During  the  long 
winter,  the  Babylonian  plain,  flooded  by  the  heavy  rains,  looked 
like  a  sea  (Bab.  tiamtUy  tidmat).  Then  comes  the  spring,  when  the 
clouds  and  water  vanish,  and  dry  land  and  vegetation  appear. 
So,  thought  the  Babylonian,  must  it  have  been  in  the  first  spring, 
at  the  first  New  Year,  when,  after  a  fight  between  Marduk  and 
Tiamat,  the  organized  world  came  into  being.”® 

This  is  the  one  important  argument  on  which  the  Babylonists 
have  based  their  theory  that  the  Hebrew  story  of  creation  was 
borrowed  from  Babylonia.  You  will  find  it  reproduced  again  and 
again;  it  is  deeply  rooted  everywhere.  It  is,  however,  entirely 
fallacious;  it  is  due  to  a  complete  misunderstanding  of  the  climatic 
conditions  in  Babylonia. 

In  the  first  place,  the  rivers  do  not  flood  in  the  winter — in  fact, 
from  October  to  January  inclusive,  the  water  in  the  river  is  at  its 
lowest  level.  Following  the  melting  of  the  snow  in  the  mountains 
of  Armenia,  the  rivers  flood  in  March,  April,  May,  and  June,®  in 
other  words,  in  the  spring  months  after  the  winter  is  passed  and 
gone.  They  are  at  the  highest  in  April  and  May.  This  com¬ 
pletely  disproves  one  part  of  the  argument.  A  similar  fate  awaits 
the  other  part. 

Babylonia  could  well  nigh  be  classed  with  desert  lands.  Some 
farmers,  depending  upon  the  rain,  do  sow  in  the  winter  months, 
and  get  results,  providing  the  rains  materialize;  but  frequently  it 
happens  that  they  do  not.  In  the  winter  of  1919-20,  the  writer 
found  that  the  rains  in  Babylonia  had  not  been  sufficient  to  bring 

^  Zimmern,  The  Babylonian  and  the  Hebrew  Genesis  p.  25. 

®  Driver,  The  Booh  of  Genesis  p.  28.  Cf.  also  King,  Schweich  Lectures  p.  128. 

^  See  Willcocks,  The  Irrigation  of  Mesopotamia  p.  5. 


III.  THE  CKEATION  STORY. 


77 


out  the  ordinary  verdure,  leaving  the  land  even  in  spring  looking 
like  a  desert.  The  crops  of  the  winter  season,  consisting  principally 
of  wheat,  barley,  beans,  and  roots,  need  irrigation  from  November 
to  May.i®  Without  the  aid  of  the  rivers  and  the  irrigation  ditches, 
the  country  would  be  a  complete  waste;  and  it  would  be  no  place 
for  man  to  live.  If  the  rains  are  scanty  on  the  whole,  the  native  is 
pleased,  because  of  the  damage  which  heavy  rains  do  to  his  mud 
house,  or  because  they  beat  through  the  flimsy  reed-hut  in  which 
he  lives.  The  rivers,  in  short,  furnish  the  land  with  its  ^Tife  blood. 

Sir  William  Willcocks  gives  us  observations  on  the  climate  for 
seven  years,  taken  at  Baghdad  by  the  Meteorological  Department  of 
India,  in  which  the  average  rainfall  for  the  year  is  given  as  4.98 
inches.  In  one  of  the  seven  years  an  exceptionally  heavy  fall  of 
10.23  is  recorded ;  the  lowest  being  2.78  inches. The  latter  amount 
is  about  the  average  given  by  the  German  scientists,  who  have 
also  kept  records  of  the  rainfall. 

Koldewey,  who  excavated  at  Babylon  for  about  sixteen  years, 
informs  us  that  rain  is  very  scanty  in  Babylonia.  He  writes:  ^‘I 
believe  if  all  the  hours  in  the  whole  year  in  which  there  were  more 
than  a  few  drops  of  rain  were  reckoned  up,  they  would  barely  amount 
to  seven  or  eight  days.  The  annual  downfall  has  been  registered 
by  Buddensieg  at  seven  centimetres  (  =  2.80  inches). 

The  fall  of  2.78  inches  of  1909  at  Baghdad,  which  is  about  the 
average  fall  of  rain  given  by  the  German  scientist  at  Babylon, 
distributed  by  months  was  as  follows :  October  .25  (in  two  rains) ; 
November  .25  (four);  December  .77  (four);  January  .06  (two); 
February  .70  (five);  March  .28  (two);  April  .33  (three);  May  .14 
(two);  making  in  all  2.78  inches. We  would  compare  this  fall  of 

Willcocks,  Ibidem  p.  7. 

Ibidem  74  ff. 

12  Koldewey,  The  Excavations  at  Babylon  p.  74. 

12  See  Willcocks,  Ibidem  77  ff. 


78 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


rain  with  our  light  summer  showers.  Banks,  who  also  excavated  in 
Babylonia,  writes:  ^^The  rains  are  not  continuous  as  in  other  parts 
of  the  Orient,  for  they  come  with  no  greater  frequency  than  during 
a  New  England  summer,  and  it  is  then  that  Babylonia  possesses 
one  of  the  most  delightful  of  climates.^ 

It  is  only  necessary  to  contrast  this  situation  with  the  statements 
that  scholars  have  been  making  for  years,  in  order  to  ascertain  how 
baseless  they  are.  But  we  need  not  simply  register  negative  results 
in  connection  with  the  climate. 

Let  us  now  inquire  what  the  meteorological  reports  of  the  rain¬ 
fall  in  Syria  and  Palestine  inform  us.  At  Jerusalem,  where  records 
have  been  kept  for  over  fifty  years,  the  average  is  26.16  inches 
(13.39  to  41.62);  at  Haifa  the  average  is  27.75;  at  Beirut  35.87; 
and  in  the  Lebanon  mountains,  about  50  inches. Most  of  the 
rain  in  Syria  falls  in  the  three  winter  months,  December,  January, 
and  February.  An  average  rainfall  of  35.87,  or  50  inches,  naturally 
means  that  in  some  years  there  is  a  much  greater  fall.  What  such 
torrential  downpours,  which  occur  in  the  three  cold  winter  months, 
mean  to  the  people,  and  what  happens  often  to  the  towns  situated 
in  the  fertile  plains  and  valleys,  it  is  not  difficult  to  imagine. 

We  have  therefore  seen  that  the  flooding  of  the  rivers  in  Baby¬ 
lonia  occurs  not  in  winter;  that  the  average  fall  of  rain  is  exceed¬ 
ingly  small;  and  that  in  contrast  with  this  situation,  the  average 
fall  of  rain  for  Syria  is  about  ten  times  as  great.  It  should  neces¬ 
sarily  follow,  therefore,  that  if,  as  scholars  say,  this  is  a  nature- 
myth  which  symbolizes  the  change  of  seasons  from  winter  to  spring, 
reflecting  the  climate  of  the  land,  and  if  it  had  its  origin  either  in 
Amurru  or  Babylonia,  it  was  certainly  indigenous  in  the  former. 

We  have  not  yet  discussed  all  that  this  argument  of  the 
Babylonists  implies.  This  will  be  covered  fully  under  the 

Banks,  Bismaya  p.  352. 

See  the  International  Bible  Encyclopaedia  p.  2526. 


III.  THE  CREATION  STORY. 


79 


third  head,  in  the  discussion  of  the  names  that  are  contained  in 
the  stories. 

Under  the  third  division  of  the  discussion  as  outlined  in  the 
second  chapter,  we  now  come  to  an  examination  of  the  names 
of  deities  with  reference  to  the  source  whence  they  came,  beginning 
with  the  primaeval  gods  Apsu,  Tiamat,  and  Mummu. 

When  George  Smith  first  interpreted  the  creation  fragments,  he 
translated  Apsu  ^Hhe  abyss,”  and  Mummu-Tiamat  ^Hhe  chaos  (or 
water),”  and  Tiamat  “the  sea.”^®  For  a  long  time,  scholars  followed 
Smith  in  translating  Apsu  and  Tiamat  in  this  way.  The  only 
recent  translations,  however,  that  preserve  Smithes  idea,  are  those 
of  Dhorme,  who  translated  Apsu  ^^de  Tocean”  (1907)  and  Barton, 
who  translated  Apsu  Abyss,”  and  Tiamat  ^^Sea”  (1922). All 
other  recent  translators  consider  Apsu  and  Tiamat  as  proper  names, 
e.g.,  Jensen  (1900), King  (1902,  1916) ,2®  Rogers  (1912),2i  Jastrow 
(1914), 22  Ebeling  (1921),23  Ungnad  (1921), Budge  (1921),25  and 
Luckenbill  (1921  ).26 

In  Babylonian  apsu  means  “ocean,  deep.”  Some  Assyriologists 
think,  since  the  ideogram  ZU-AB  is  used  for  this  word,  that  the 
root  of  it  is  the  Semitic  zdhu,  “to  flow.”  Others  hold  that  apsu  is 
Babylonian;  and  still  others,  Sumerian;  but  all  seem  to  agree,  as 
far  as  I  can  see,  that  it  is  the  origin  of  the  Hebrew  ’epes.  In  other 
words,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  there  is  a  clear  etymology  for  the 

Chaldean  Account  of  Genesis  p.  65. 

Choix  de  Textes  Religieux  Assyro-Bahyloniens  p.  3. 

Archaeology  and  the  Bible  p.  235. 

Keilinschriftliche  Bibliothek  p.  2. 

Seven  Tablets  of  Creation  p.  2;  and  Schweich  Lectures  (1916)  p.  122. 

21  Cuneiform  Parallels  p.  3. 

22  Hebrew  and  Babylonian  Traditions  p.  69. 

23  Das  Babylonische  Weltschopfungslied  p.  14. 

24  Die  Religion  der  Babylonier  und  Assyrier  p.  27. 

23  The  Babylonian  Legends  of  Creation  p.  32. 

28  Amer.  Jour.  Sem.  Lang.  XXXVIII,  p.  15. 


80 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


word  in  Hebrew,  while  there  is  none  in  Babylonian,  it  nevertheless 
is  said  to  have  originated  in  the  latter  language.  While  both  a'psu 
and  tidmat  are  translated  ocean, the  former  is  regarded  as  refer¬ 
ring  to  “sweet  water,”  and  the  latter  to  “salt  water.”  The  basis 
for  this  remarkable  distinction  is  the  connection  of  Apsu  with  Ea, 
“the  god  of  the  springs,”  who  really  slew  him,  and  Tiamat  with 
the  “ocean.” 

In  the  Old  Testament,  the  meaning  “ocean,  deep,  abyss”  for 
^epes  is  wholly  unknown.  It  means  “the  end,  nought,”  etc.  It 
refers  to  the  extreme  limit  of  the  earth.  It  is  from  the  root  ^ps 
“to  come  to  an  end,  to  cease.”  Not  only  the  verb  is  in  use  in 
Hebrew,  but  a  derivative,  ^opes.  The  poetical  and  cosmological 
idea  expressed  by  ’epes,  occurring  in  the  plural  ’ap^se,  in  the  phrase 
“ends  of  the  earth,”  is  found  fourteen  times  in  the  Old  Testament. 
Let  the  following  passage  from  Proverbs  (30:4)  suffice  to  illustrate 
its  use : 

Who  has  ascended  up  into  heaven,  and  descended? 

Who  has  gathered  the  wind  in  his  fists? 

Who  has  bound  the  waters  in  his  garment? 

Who  has  raised  up  all  the  ends  (’ap^se)  of  the  earth? 

And  let  us  here  inquire  as  to  the  meaning  of  apsu  in  the  Enuma 
elish.  Besides  the  personal  name,  this  passage  (lines  69  ff)  occurs: 

He  bound  him,  namely  Apsu,  and  slew  him. 

He  established  upon  apsu  his  dwelling. 

In  his  chamber  he  rested  peacefully. 

He  named  it  apsu,  he  founded  shrines. 

Around  its  place  (ashru)  he  established  his  dry  ground  (giparru). 

There  is  here  no  intimation  that  apsu  has  anything  to  do  with 
water.  The  proper  understanding  of  this  passage  implies  that  out 
of  Apsu,  Ea  made  apsu,  the  place  upon  which  he  built  his  dwelling, 
referring  to  the  temple  at  Eridu;  where  he  also  established  shrines; 


III.  THE  CREATION  STORY. 


81 


and  around  which  place  he  created  earth.  The  word  ashru 

place/ ^  could  scarcely  be  used  in  connection  with  the  ocean. 
Does  this,  therefore,  sound  like  ^^a  watery  chaos,’^  or  the  “water 
beneath  the  earth 

This  passage  appears  to  me  to  reflect  the  movement  of  the 
Semites  in  going  to  “the  end’’  of  land,  where  Ea’s  temple  was  built. 
The  cosmological  idea  expressed  by  aysu  in  this  story,  is  identical 
with  that  of  the  Hebrews  ^epes,  for  to  them  it  was  the  extreme 
part  of  the  earth,  the  land’s  end,  which  Apsu  personified.  That  is, 
to  the  Semite  at  Eridu  apsu  was  the  “dry  land”  that  was  created; 
at  the  point  where,  at  that  time,  the  land  ended  and  the  great 
waters  began. 

In  this  connection,  let  us  look  at  some  other  occurrences  of  apsu 
in  the  cuneiform  literature.  The  Bilingual  Babylonian  Story  of 
Creation,  or  the  beginnings  of  Eridu,  which  was  first  translated  by 
Dr.  Pinches,27  in  referring  to  the  time  before  vegetation  had  been 
created,  and  buildings  were  erected  in  the  alluvial  plain  (see  Appen¬ 
dix  B),  reads  as  follows  from  the  sixth  line,  telling  of  the  time  when: 

Nippur  was  not  made,  Ekur  was  not  built; 

Erech  was  not  made;  E-anna  was  not  built; 

The  apsu  was  not  made,  Eridu  was  not  built; 

The  holy  house,  the  house  of  the  gods,  his  habitation  was  not  made. 

All  lands  were  sea. 

When  what  was  in  the  sea  was  pressed  out. 

At  that  time  Eridu  was  made,  Esagil  was  built; 

The  temple . where  in  the  apsu,  Lugal-du-azag  had  dwelt. 

Babylon  was  built;  Esagil  was  finished. 

In  the  last  three  lines,  we  can  see  the  work  of  the  priests  of  Babylon 
who  rewrote  the  poem  to  glorify  their  god  Marduk. 

Certainly  the  temple  of  Eridu  and  its  shrines  were  not  built  in 
the  ocean.  To  translate  apsu  “deep”  in  the  eighth  line,  as  well  as 

2'^  Jour.  Royal  Asiatic  Society  XXIII  393  ff. 


82 


THE  OKIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


in  the  thirteenth  line,  as  has  been  done  by  Assyriologists,  I  think, 
is  a  mistake.  It  unquestionably  refers  to  the  land  on  which  Eridu 
has  been  built,  namely  the  land^s  end. 

Professor  Jastrow  in  translating  apsu  “deep,^^  as  is  usually  done, 
recognized  that  the  line  was  in  contradiction  to  hne  ten,  ^‘All  lands 
were  sea.’^  He,  therefore,  proposed  that  lines  nine  to  eleven  belong 
to  a  Nippur  version,  in  contradistinction  to  the  Eridu  version.^* 
But  by  translating  apsu  as  ^epes,  this  proposal  becomes  unnecessary. 

In  a  ritual  text  concerning  the  restoration  of  the  temple,  which 
Weissbach  published,^^  we  find  this  passage: 

Ea  (Nu-dim-mud)  created  apsu,  his  dwelling  place. 

Ea  pinched  off  clay  from  the  apsu. 

He  created  KuUa  (the  brick  god)  for  the  restoration  [of  temples].’’ 

It  would  seem  somewhat  difficult  to  pinch  clay  for  the  making  of 
bricks,  off  ‘Hhe  ocean,”  as  apsu  is  usually  translated  in  this  passage. 

In  the  Gilgamesh  story  of  the  flood,  Ea  advised  the  hero,  as 
regards  the  construction  of  the  ship  to  cover  it  with  a  roof.  He 
says :  ^  ^  Upon  the  apsu  protect  it  with  a  shdshu  ”  (line  31 ) .  The  hero 
later  says:  laid  its  hull;  I  enclosed  it  with  a  shdshu”  (line  60). 

I  have  endeavored  to  show  elsewhere  that  shdshUy  the  course  of 
the  sun-god  in  the  heavens,  is  the  Babylonian  word  for  ^ffirma- 
ment,”  corresponding  to  the  Hebrew  rdqVa\  the  vault  above  the 
earth;  and  that  it  is  here  used  figuratively  for  the  roof  or  covering 
of  the  ship.^®  With  this  understanding  that  shdshu  is  the  covering 
which  rested  upon  its  sides,  ^.  c.,  the  apsu  or  ^‘ends  of  the  ship,” 
we  have  an  illustration  of  the  firmament  resting  upon  the 
or  ‘‘ends  of  the  earth.”  In  the  Enuma  elish  the  shdshu  is  repre¬ 
sented  by  the  halved  Tiamat,  the  ends  of  which  also  rested  on  the 

Jour.  Amer.  Or.  Soc.  XXXVI  p.  283. 

29  Bahylonische  Miscellen  XII:  25-27. 

See  A  Hebrew  Deluge  Story  73  f. 


III.  THE  CREATION  STORY. 


83 


This  also  is  the  Hebrew  conception,  as  shown  by  the 
passage:  “The  pillars  of  heaven  tremble, Job  26:11.^^ 

I  have  never  seen  this  conception  of  the  earth^s  construction 
presented;  namely,  that  the  firmament  rested  upon  the  “ends  of 
the  earth  nor,  as  far  as  I  can  ascertain,  has  it  been  appreciated 
that  the  first  act  of  creation  in  the  Enuma  elish  was  the  founding  of 
the  apsH. 

If  apsiX  in  Babylonian,  as  I  maintain,  originally  meant  the  ends 
of  the  earth,  and  is  an  Amorite  word,  how  can  we  explain  that  in 
Babylonian  it  came  to  have  the  meaning  “ocean,  deep''? 

When  the  Amorites  descended  from  the  higher  lands  into  the 
alluvium  they  went  to  the  land's  “end,"  and  there  established  a 
city,  which  we  know  as  Eridu.  This  to  them  was  a  veritable  ^epes. 
Here,  on  land  only  a  few  feet  above  the  sea,  like  the  present  Basra, 
they  established  their  permanent  home.  Situated  in  the  extreme 
delta,  through  which  at  that  time  doubtless  many  streams  in  flood 
season  flowed,  whereby  the  water  could  easily  escape,  probably  on 
what  appeared  as  a  shoal  in  flood  season,  they  could  live  with  much 
less  labor  than  farther  north  where  the  rivers  had  to  be  harnessed. 
This  very  probably  explains  why  Eridu  was  “the  first  city"  built 
in  the  plain.  It  seems  to  me  that  this  is  reflected  in  the  Bilingual 
Babylonian  Creation  Story,  where  we  read  that  “the  lord  Marduk 
filled  in  an  embankment  at  the  edge  of  the  sea"  (Appendix  B : 30) . 

It  is  not  difficult  to  understand  how  their  deity,  Ea,  who  in  their 
native  land  had  been  “god  of  the  earth"  (i.  e.,  En-Ki),  and  also 
of  its  springs  and  fountains  which  had  made  the  rivers,  became  at 
Eridu,  where  “fountains  of  the  deep"  were  unknown,  the  god  of 
the  rivers  and  the  ocean.  My  colleague  Professor  Hopkins  calls 
my  attention  to  the  fact  that  in  Aryan  mythology  there  are  several 
examples  of  agricultural  deities  or  gods  of  springs  becoming  gods 
of  the  ocean.  Poseidon,  though  in  Homer  a  god  of  the  sea,  has 
My  colleague,  Professor  Torrey,  has  called  my  attention  to  this  passage. 


84 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


clear  traces  of  an  earlier  more  general  character  of  a  god  of  nourish¬ 
ing  water.  In  the  Peloponnesus,  he  was  specially  honored  as  god 
of  fertility,  not  only  of  crops  but  also  of  flocks;  the  rearing  of 
horses  was  his  peculiar  care.^^ 

Parallel  to  this  is  the  growth  of  Neptune,  who  about  400  B.  C. 
became  identified  with  Poseidon,  when  he  also  became  wholly  an 
ocean-god.  In  other  words,  Neptune,  like  Poseidon,  was  first  a 
god  of  springs  and  fertilizing  waters  before  becoming  a  sea-god.^® 

Professor  Hopkins  also  calls  my  attention  to  the  fact  that  in 
India,  Varuna  is  god  of  rain  and  of  sky-water  first,  before  he  be¬ 
comes  the  ocean-god;  later  when  the  people  reached  the  sea,  they 
called  their  general  water-god  the  god  of  the  ocean ;  that  is,  he  was 
always  god  of  water  of  all  kinds;  and  ocean was  simply  included 
in  his  province.  Furthermore,  he  became  ‘^god  of  the  West^'  on 
account  of  the  location  of  the  sea  (Arabian  ocean),  as  well  as  ‘^god 
of  the  ocean. 

There  is  a  passage  in  the  Bilingual  Babylonian  Story  of  Creation, 
quoted  above  (see  also  Appendix  B),  which  has  never  been  under¬ 
stood,  and  which,  it  seems  to  me,  throws  important  light  on  the 
subject.  After  referring  to  the  time  before  vegetation  has  appeared, 
and  temples  and  cities  had  been  built,  the  phrase  ^^all  lands  were 
sea,^^  is  followed  by  the  passage  in  question: 

1-nu  sha  ki-rib  tam-tim  ra-^u-um-ma. 

This  is  immediately  followed  by  the  words:  ^^At  that  time  Eridu 
was  built.’’  The  passage,  therefore,  should  refer  to  what  happened 
between  the  time  when  all  was  sea,  and  the  building  of  Eridu,  and 
is  therefore  the  crucial  one  of  this  story  of  creation. 

Following  are  some  of  the  translations  of  the  passage.  The  words 
that  are  italicized  represent  the  word  ratuma. 

”  See  Fairbanks,  Greek  Religion  p.  154. 

**  See  Georg  Wissowa,  Religion  und  Kultus  der  Romer  p.  250. 

See  Hopkins,  Religions  of  India  p.  67. 


III.  THE  CREATION  STORY. 


85 


When  within  the  sea  there  was  a  stream.  (Pinches.)^® 

When  within  the  sea  the  current  was.  (Sayce.) 

Da  die  Mitte  des  Meers  ein  W asserhechen  war.  (Jensen.) 

At  that  time  there  was  a  movement  in  the  sea.  (King.) 

Das  Feste  der  Insel  war  Wasserfiuss.  (Jeremias.) 

When  the  middle  of  the  sea  was  a  water-basin.  (Rogers.) 

At  a  time  when  there  was  a  ditch{?)  in  the  midst  of  the  sea.  (Jastrow.) 

At  the  time  that  the  mid-most  sea  was  [shaped  like]  a  trough.  (Budge.) 

Als  die  Mitte  des  Meeres  ein  Rinnsal  war.  (Ungnad.) 

There  is  a  foreign  word  rdtUy  found  in  a  text  of  the  late  Sargon, 
and  in  some  explanatory  lists,^®  which  seems  to  have  been  properly 
identified  with  the  Hebrew  rahat  ^ trough,  basin’’;  and  this  is  the 
basis  for  the  translations  given  above.  But  it  must  be  quite 
apparent  that  a  trough,  or  a  current,  a  basin,  a  ditch,  or  a  stream, 
in  the  midst  of  the  sea,  scarcely  makes  sense,  and  does  not  account 
for  the  dry  ground  upon  which  Eridu  was  built.  There  is,  however, 
a  Hebrew  word  which  I  think  may  throw  light  upon  the  difficulty. 
In  Job  (16:11),  there  are  parallel  phrases  reading  thus: 

God  delivered  me  to  the  ungodly 

And  cast  me  out  (yirient)  upon  the  hands  of  the  wicked. 

Practically  all  commentators  haves  uggested  that  yirient  has  been 
incorrectly  handed  down,  and  that  it  should  be  ylr^nty  from  a  root 
yarat,  found  in  a  single  passage  in  Numbers  (22:32),37  which  also 
does  not  seem  to  be  understood.  But  there  does  not  seem  to  be 
any  need  for  this  emendation.  The  root  ratah,  in  late  Hebrew 
meaning  ^Ho  wring  out,  press  out,”  seems  to  be  that  of  the  word  in 
the  above  passage,  which  is  usually  translated,  ^^cast  out”;  and 
this  is  also  the  root  of  ratuma  in  the  Babylonian  story,  and  not 
rahat.  The  passage  can  then  be  translated:  ‘^Then  what  was  in 

^  The  publications,  in  which  the  translations  are  found,  are  given  in  a  foot-note 
to  Appendix  B. 

3®  See  Muss-Arnolt,  Ass.  Die.  p.  961. 

3’  See  Gesenius-Buhl  p.  319;  and  the  recent  commentaries  on  The  Book  of  Job, 
by  Driver  and  Gray,  Ball,  etc. 


86 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


the  midst  of  the  sea  was  pressed  out  (wrung  out,  cast  out),^^  namely 
the  ^^dry  land,^^  which  was  the  ^epes.  With  this  meaning  the  pas¬ 
sage  describes  the  appearance  of  ground  at  Eridu,  for  we  know 
that  the  Persian  Gulf  recedes  each  year.  This  is  also  the  Hebrew 
conception  of  the  formation  of  ^Hhe  dry  land,^^  as  we  learn  from 
Genesis,  and  also  from  the  cosmological  passage  referred  to  (in 
Job  30:4),  where  the  ^epes  was  raised  up^^  from  the  sea.  While 
the  word  heqtm  can  be  translated  “established,^^  as  is  usually  done 
in  the  passage,  every  Hebrew  scholar  knows  that  it  literally  means 
“raised  up^’;  and  this  expresses  the  cosmological  idea  that  is  found 
in  the  Babylonian  story. 

If  my  interpretation  of  ratu  is  correct,  it  would  seem  to  be  a 
word  used  by  the  Amorites  who  lived  at  Eridu.  Moreover,  it  will 
be  interesting  to  have  the  Sumerist,  who  holds  that  this  bilingual 
story  was  originally  Sumerian,  explain  why  the  Sumerian  scribe 
used  the  word  rad  (there  being  no  J  in  Sumerian)  for  ratu]  and  it 
will  also  be  interesting  to  have  him  explain  why  the  Sumerians  used 
the  sign  RAD  for  the  Semitic  ratu  “basin,’’  when  his  own  word 
for  “basin”  was  shita.  Perhaps  later  he  will  agree  that  the  original 
story  was  Semitic,  and  not  Sumerian. 

With  this  understanding  of  the  passage  in  question,  it  becomes 
clear  how  the  word  ’epes,  meaning  “end,”  became  identified  with 
the  sea,  which  from  year  to  year  sent  forth  more  ^epes;  and  what  is 
here  more  important,  how  the  sea,  which  contained  the  ^epes,  came 
to  be  called  apsu.^^ 

In  understanding  that  these  two  words  are  related,  we  should  attempt  to 
account  for  the  final  long  vowel.  There  seem  to  be  three  possible  explanations. 
One  is,  that  probably  apsH  means  ‘belonging  to  the  'epes,”  referring  to  the  water 
which  surrounds  it,  and  with  which  it  was  so  closely  identified.  The  second  is, 
that  it  is  dual;  certainly  this  is  implied  here  as  well  as  elsewhere.  And  the  third  is, 
that  it  is  plural,  like  the  word  in  the  common  poetic  phrase  of  the  Old  Testament, 
meaning  ‘*ends  of  the  earth.”  Exactly  the  reverse  was  advanced  by  Hommel, 
as  quoted  by  Zimmern  KAD  p.  492  note  1. 


III.  THE  CREATION  STORY. 


87 


We  have  seen  above  that  apsu  in  the  Enuma  elish  does  not  mean 
^Hhe  deep/^  nor  is  it  connected  with  that  idea.  It,  therefore, 
cannot  be  used  to  show  that  in  the  Babylonian  story  ^‘the  watery 
chaos’’  was  the  first  creator.  Moreover,  taking  everything  into 
consideration,  it  must  be  apparent  that  apsu  in  this  poem  originally 
personified  the  end  of  the  earth,  around  which  the  ^^dry  ground” 
was  formed;  while  Tiamat  personified  the  water.” 

We  now  come  to  Tiamat,  the  consort  of  Apsu,  who  was  slain  by 
the  god  Marduk,  and  out  of  whose  corpse  the  firmament  was 
created. 

In  Babylonian  the  word  tiamat  means  “sea,  deep,  abyss.”  It  is 
found  written  in  the  following  forms:  ti-a-am-tu,  ti-am-tu,  ti-amat, 
tani-tu,  tam-du,  ta-ma-tu,  ti-d(wa)-am-tu,  and  ti-d{wa)-md{wa)-ti. 

In  an  examination  of  all  the  dictionaries  and  glossaries  at  hand, 
from  the  earliest  period  to  the  latest,  as  well  as  syllabaries  and  many 
texts,  I  could  not  find  a  single  example  of  this  very  common  word 
meaning  “sea”  that  represents  the  h  (as  is  usually  done  by  what 
is  called  the  ^Treathing”)  which  all  scholars  admit  it  originally 
contained.^® 

The  many  variant  forms  of  the  word  clearly  indicate  that  it  is 
foreign.  This  is  especially  shown  by  the  last  two  examples  given 
above  in  which  wa  is  used  instead  of  a  and  Certainly  this 

comparatively  rare  usage  of  the  sign  by  the  two  scribes  indicates 
that  they  appreciated  that  the  word  contained  a  weak  consonant; 
but  they  did  not  know  which.  The  scribe  of  the  last  example  even 
represented  the  h  in  the  word  which  followed.  Yet  the  word 
tiamat,  for  which  there  is  no  root  in  Babylonian,  scholars  have 
declared  is  the  origin  of  the  Hebrew  tehom. 

3®  I  have  no  doubt  that  such  an  example  will  turn  up  if  scholars  are  right  as 
regards  the  root  of  tehom. 

^®The  former  occurs  in  a  building  inscription  of  Nabopolassar  OBI  84,  11:50; 
and  the  latter  is  found  in  the  Creation  Story  11:81  {CT  13,  6:13). 


88 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


In  the  Old  Testament  the  very  common  word  thom^  which  means 
the  same  as  tidmat,  was  also  used  for  the  ^^subterranean  waters’^ 
and  the  primaeval  waters  before  the  creation.  Tehom,  who  personi¬ 
fied  the  deep,  was  a  swift  serpent  and  a  monster  of  the  waters. 
We  not  only  have  the  root  of  the  word  in  general  usage  in  Hebrew, 
but  we  have  several  allied  roots,  as  well  as  derivatives.  We  have 
hunij  hamam  and  hamah.  These  roots  being  so  closely  related, 
scholars  are  not  agreed  from  which  one  Tehom  is  derived.  This 
word  is  generally  regarded  as  having  been  borrowed  from  the 
Babylonian  tidmat]  or,  as  a  follower  of  the  Babylonists,  in  writing 
on  the  second  verse  of  Genesis,  puts  it:  ^^Unquestionably,  too,  the 
word  [fhom]  is  derived  from  the  Babylonian  Tidmat.  And  its 
early  use  in  Hebrew  attests  early  Israelite  acquaintance  with  the 
Babylonian  Enuma  elish  epic,  or  at  least  with  the  Babylonian 
creation  myth  in  some  form  or  other. 

Without  taking  into  consideration  the  discussion  which  follows, 
it  has  appeared  for  years  almost  incredible  that  Assyriologists 
could  make  themselves  believe  that  this  corrupted  word,  which 
from  the  earliest  times  had  lost  the  consonant  hy  and  for  which 
there  is  no  etymology  in  Babylonian,  could  be  the  origin  of  the 
Hebrew  fhom  and  the  Arabic  tihdmat.  Let  us  now  inquire  what 
other  light  Babylonian  literature  and  art  throw  on  the  subject 
before  us. 

There  is  an  inscription  called  the  Cuthean  Legend  in  which  an 
early  Babylonian  king  recounts  how  he  was  delivered  from  hordes 
of  people  who  had  the  bodies  of  birds  of  the  hollow,  men  who  had 
the  faces  of  ravens, whom  Tiamat  had  suckled,  and  who  ^Tn  the 
midst  of  the  mountain  became  strong, etc.  The  king  mustered 
great  forces  and  eventually,  after  three  years^  fighting,  triumphed 
over  this  foreign  power  which  had  humiliated  his  land.  The  tablet 
commemorating  the  deliverance  was  deposited  as  a  memorial  in 

"  Morgenstern,  Amer.  Jour.  Sem.  Lang.  XXXVI  p.  197. 


III.  THE  CREATION  STORY. 


89 


the  temple  at  Cutha.  Tiamat,  it  would  seem,  was  here,  as  in  Enuma 
elish,  the  mother-goddess  of  that  people.  They  lived  in  a  moun¬ 
tain.  It  should  be  added  that  there  is  nothing  in  the  legend  that 
connects  her  or  anything  else  with  the  sea.^^ 

Besides  this  legend  there  are  several  references  to  Tiamat  in  frag¬ 
ments  of  tablets  which  are  either  not  understood  or  throw  little  or 
no  light  upon  the  subject.  In  one,  which  is  probably  astrological, 
^‘tiamat  the  upper,’^  and  ^Hidmat  the  lower,’’  refer  to  the  upper  and 
lower  sea.  In  another,  the  breadth  of  ^f[dma^],”  which,  if  correctly 
restored,  has  a  significance  that  is  not  understood. 

While  references  to  Tiamat  in  the  literature  are  exceedingly 
hmited,  there  are  two  other  legends  known  which  refer  to  male 
monsters,  who  s3mibolize  foreign  powers.  In  the  Library  of  Ashur- 
banipal,  an  inscription  was  preserved  which  records  a  fight  between 
Tishpak,  a  god,  and  a  huge  serpent  {siru)  of  the  river,  who  was 
called  Labbu,  which  means  “lion,”  probably  “sea  lion.”  This 
also  did  not  occur  prior  to  the  creation,  but  after  “the  cities  had 
sighed”  because  of  some  oppression.  Unquestionably  Labbu,  who 
happens  to  be  a  male,  not  a  female  monster,  symbolically  repre¬ 
sents  some  unfriendly  sea-bordering  nation. 

A  portion  of  another  dragon  myth  was  recently  found  at  Ashur, 
and  published  by  Ebeling.^^  Unfortunately  the  text  is  very  frag¬ 
mentary,  but  there  is  enough  preserved  of  it  to  show  that  the  huge 
monster  had  legs,  and  devoured  fish,  birds,  and  beasts,  as  well  as 
“the  black  headed  people.”  This  is  also  a  male  monster  of  the 
deep,  and  is  called  dru  “serpent.”  He  unquestionably  also  repre¬ 
sents  the  national  ensign  of  some  foreign  nation. 

Let  us  here  inquire  how  Tiamat  is  described  in  the  Enuma  elish. 
In  her  equipment  for  the  fight,  in  addition  to  making  weapons 
invincible,  she  bore  monster  serpents,  vipers,  dragons,  hurricanes, 

"  See  King,  Seven  Tablets  of  Creation  I  pp.  140  ff. 

Orientalistische  Literaturzeitung  (1916)  106  f. 


90 


THE  ORIGIN  OP  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


hounds,  fish-men,  scorpion-men,  tempests,  etc.  In  the  entire  list 
of  eleven  aids,  only  fish-men’^  are  referred  to,  if  that  is  the  correct 
translation  of  the  word,  to  show  that  she  had  anything  to  do  with 
water.  Moreover,  there  is  nothing  in  the  entire  poem  to  connect 
Tiamat  with  the  sea,  except  her  name,  which,  as  we  have  seen,  is 
the  same  as  tiamat  ocean or  to  show  that  she  personified  the 
watery  chaos.^^^^  The  comparison  of  this  fact  with  the  statements 
of  Babylonists  is  quite  illuminating  and  interesting. 

In  Babylonian  art,  we  have  the  following  to  consider  in  this 
connection.  The  serpent  was  introduced  in  the  art  in  an  early 
period.  It  was  the  symbol  of  an  invader  who  ruled  the  country, 
whose  name  has  come  down  to  us  in  a  Sumerian  form,  Nin-Gish- 
Zidda.  Ushum-Gal  “the  great  serpent is  frequently  mentioned  in 
connection  with  Tammuz,  his  son;  and  was  used  symbolically  there¬ 
after  in  Babylonia.  Since  these  were  foreign  rulers,  it  becomes  clear 
as  to  how  this  symbol  was  introduced  in  the  land.  It  is  not  im¬ 
probable  that  the  country  whence  they  came,  was  in  the  Lebanon 
region,  for  Tammuz  is  said  to  have  been  born  among  the  cedars.^® 
At  present  there  is  no  way  of  connecting  Tiamat  with  these  emblems. 
Of  course,  it  is  well  known  that  the  worship  of  the  serpent  or  dragon 
prevailed  also  in  Elam,  Egypt,  Phoenicia,  Hatti,  Persia,  India, 
China,  Greece,  and  other  lands. 

On  a  large  slab  found  in  the  palace  of  Ashurnasirpal  at  Nimroud, 
the  fight  between  the  storm-god  and  a  winged  monster  is  depicted. 
This,  however,  is  also  a  male  monster.  Sennacherib,  in  a  building 
inscription,  tells  of  his  having  a  great  bronze  door  made  on  which 

Deimel  has  recently  propounded  a  brand-new  theory  as  follows:  Tiamat 
typifies  Rim-Sin,  king  of  Larsa,  who  reigned  as  far  as  the  sea  (tidmat).  Kingu  is 
Ki-en-gif  the  name  of  Sumer,  which  in  the  epic  is  personified  in  derision.  The 
victory  of  Marduk  over  Tiamat  and  Kingu  typifies  the  conquest  of  Hammurabi 
over  Larsa  and  Sumer.  (See  Orientalia  4,  44  f.) 

See  A  Hebrew  Delitge  Story  p.  46.  The  fact  that  his  name  is  written  with  two 
Sumerian  ideograms  Dumu-zi  is  no  proof  that  Tammuz  was  a  Sumerian. 


III.  THE  CREATION  STORY. 


91 


he  had  portrayed  scenes  depicting  the  fight  with  Tiamat,  not  by 
Marduk,  but  by  his  own  deity,  Ashur.  There  are  also  a  number 
of  seals  with  scenes  of  a  fight  between  a  deity  and  a  dragon,  as  well 
as  seals  depicting  fights  with  lions  and  other  beasts.  In  many 
instances  such  objects  reflect  the  religious  ideas  of  the  people,  in 
distinction  from  the  recognized  theological  ideas  of  organized  society. 

Let  us  here  inquire  whether  any  references  in  the  cuneiform  liter¬ 
ature,  besides  the  Enuma  elish,  can  be  cited  to  show  that  the 
Babylonians  had  such  a  doctrine  as  the  emanation  of  all  things 
from  ^^a  watery  chaos, or  moisture,^’  which  it  is  claimed  was 
borrowed  from  Babylonia. 

In  the  Bilingual  Babylonian  Story  of  Creation,  bearing  especially 
on  the  building  of  the  temple  in  Eridu,  already  mentioned,  in  which 
after  referring  to  the  time  before  reeds  sprouted,  trees  grew,  bricks 
had  been  made,  or  Nippur,  Uruk,  and  apsu  had  been  made,  the 
writer  says: 

All  lands  were  sea. 

Then,  what  was  in  the  midst  of  the  sea  was  pressed  out. 

Marduk  bound  reeds  upon  the  face  of  the  water; 

He  created  ground,  and  poured  (it)  with  the  reeds. 

In  this  cosmological  conception,  as  Professor  Jastrow  has  cor¬ 
rectly  pointed  out,  ^Hhere  is  no  assumption  of  a  chaotic  condition 
at  the  beginning  of  time  with  the  watery  element  in  control.^^^® 
The  myth  assumes  the  earth  to  be  in  existence,  but  covered  with 
water.  There  was,  however,  no  life  in  it.  Professor  King  also 
called  attention  to  the  fact  that  in  this  myth  ^‘it  is  important  to 
note  that  the  primaeval  water  is  not  personified.’’^^ 

The  conception  that  this  naive  writer  gives  us  of  the  creation  is 
that  the  gods  made  the  ^^dry  land”  appear  in  much  the  same  way 

Amer.  Jour.  Sem.  Lang.  XXXVI  244  ff. 

Schweich  Lectures  1916  p.  124. 


92 


THE  OKIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TEADITIONS. 


as  many  of  the  early  cultivators  of  the  land  did  in  order  to  create 
fields.  This,  as  already  stated  above,  is  a  local  nature-myth  which 
had  its  origin  in  Eridu,  and  reflects  the  time  when  Amorites  moved 
into  the  uninhabited  alluvium.  This  is  the  nearest  approach  to 
the  Amorite  cosmology  that  I  know  of  in  the  Babylonian  literature. 
In  other  stories  of  creation  handed  down  in  Sumerian,  there  is 
not  a  semblance  of  the  idea  that  things  emanated  from  water  or 
a  watery  chaos.  In  view,  therefore,  of  all  the  assertions  made  by 
Babylonists  on  the  subject,  and  also  Sumerists,  this  conclusion 
must  be  conceded  as  most  surprising. 

In  the  Old  Testament,  as  we  have  seen,  there  are  many  references 
to  the  conflict  between  Yahweh  and  Rahab  or  Leviathan  the  dragon, 
who  personified  the  deep,  Tehom.  There  are  so  many  references 
to  this  conflict  and  the  primaeval  state,  and  so  many  poetical 
allusions  to  the  dragon,  symbolizing  the  deep,  chaos,  destruction, 
and  death,  that  one  is  led  to  feel  that  the  conception  belonged  to 
the  very  bone  and  marrow  of  the  religious  and  philosophic  thought 
of  the  people.  Even  in  the  New  Testament  we  learn  that  'Hhe 
earth  was  compacted  out  of  water  by  the  word  of  God’’  (II  Peter, 
3:5). 

We  have  also  seen  how  in  the  Phoenician  cosmogony  all  the  seeds 
of  creation  sprang  from  the  watery  chaos;  which  thought  is  also 
paralleled  in  Homer,  who  tells  us  that  Okeanos  was  the  source  of  all 
things,  including  the  gods.  This  thought,  moreover,  was  also  very 
widely  diffused.  The  watery  origin  of  created  things  was  known 

to  the  Vedic  Aryans  even  the  North  American  Indians  had  this 
doctrine. 

With  all  the  light,  therefore,  that  is  now  available  from  the 
cuneiform  literature  we  learn  on  the  one  hand  that,  with  the  excep¬ 
tion  of  the  Enuma  elishy  but  one  legend  mentions  Tiamat,  who  in 
it  is  not  a  goddess  of  the  deep,  but  the  mother-goddess  of  a  moun- 

See  Hopkins,  Religions  of  India  p.  48. 


III.  THE  CREATION  STORY. 


93 


tainous  land  which  had  humiliated  Babylonia;  and  on  the  other 
hand,  the  thought  that  all  things  emanated  from  water  is  wholly 
wanting  in  the  literature  of  the  Babylonians. 

Where  then,  we  ask,  are  the  data  to  show  that  ^Hhe  elements 
indeed  of  the  Biblical  cosmology  are  all  Babylonian’’?  Where 
then  is  the  proof  that  attests  early  Israelite  acquaintance  with 
the  Babylonian  Enuma  elish,’’  even  if  we  assume  that  this  epic  is 
Babylonian?  Where  is  the  basis  for  the  assertion  that  the  doctrine 
of  the  emanation  of  all  things  from  water  is  based  on  it,  or,  in  fact, 
on  anything  Babylonian?  If  a  more  ancient  recension  of  this  poem  is 
found,  it  may  contain  this  idea;  for  I  believe  the  Amorites  brought 
it  into  the  country;  but  even  then  it  would  have  to  be  admitted 
that  the  elimination  of  the  idea  in  later  times  proves  that  the 
thought  was  not  Babylonian.  How  will  the  advocates  of  the  theory 
explain  the  omission  of  the  very  idea  in  the  literature  of  the  Baby¬ 
lonians  that  they  say  the  Hebrews  borrowed,  and  with  which  their 
own  literature  was  so  thoroughly  permeated? 

It  seems  to  me  there  can  be  no  other  conclusion  but  that  at  some 
early  time  this  idea  migrated  with  the  myth  to  Babylonia  with 
Amorites,  where  it  took  on  a  local  coloring  at  Eridu,  and  was  modi¬ 
fied  at  Babylon,  and  later  at  Ashur,  during  which  process  the  Amo- 
rite  idea,  that  all  things  emanated  from  water,  was  lost  sight  of. 

We  now  come  to  the  name  and  word  Mummu.  In  the  fourth 
line  of  the  poem,  the  word  is  used  as  a  prefix  to  Tiamat,  but  in  the 
lines  which  follow,  Mummu  is  the  name  of  the  minister  of  Apsu. 
Damascius,  who  obtained  his  data  from  the  writings  of  Berossus, 
tells  us  that  Mummu  was  an  offspring  of  Apsu  and  Tiamat. 

The  explanation  of  this  word  has  given  rise  to  an  extensive  liter¬ 
ature.  Smith  originally  translated  it  ^The  chaos  of  water. 
Zimmern  translates  it  ^‘Urgrund”;  Delitzsch,  Noise,  the  tumult 
of  the  Urwasser”;  Prince  and  Haupt,  ^^unfathomable  depths,” 

**  Chaldean  Account  of  Genesis  p.  65. 


94 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


(from  a  reduplication  of  mu)]  Jensen,  ‘^Urform^^;  Dhorme, 

^  ‘  tumultueuse  ’  ^ ;  Barton,  ^  ^  roaring  ” ;  Deimel,  ^  ^  gebarerin  ’  ’  (from  a 
reduplication  of  mu{d)^^  Professor  Jastrow  held  that  Mummu, 
is  the  offspring  of  Apsu,  the  watery  expanse,  and  Tiamat,  through 
the  commingling  of  their  waters,  and  is  a  term  signifying  water. 

The  word  cannot  be  explained  et3unologically  as  coming  from  any 
root  in  use  in  Babylonian.  The  meaning  noise,  roaring,^^  which 
unquestionably  is  correct,  is  based  upon  the  well-known  Hebrew 
root  hum.  Although  there  are  a  few  occurrences  of  the  Hebrew 
word  in  cuneiform,  the  root  is  not  in  use  in  Babylonian. 

It  is  to  be  noted  that  in  the  story  the  word  or  name,  aside  from 
its  occurrence  as  a  prefix  to  Tiamat,  is  not  used  in  any  way  as 
connected  with  water;  in  fact  httle  light  is  thrown  upon  Mummu 
except  that  he  concurred  in  the  plot  of  Apsu ;  and  then,  because  he 
became  violent,  after  his  master  had  been  slain,  Ea  killed  him. 

In  the  Old  Testament,  m^humahj  with  which  Smith  correctly 
connected  the  word,  means  “tumult,  confusion,  disquietude,^^  from 
the  root  hum  “to  murmur,  roar,  discomfit.’^  This  understanding 
of  the  word  throws  Hght  upon  its  use  as  a  title  or  prefix  to  the  name 
Tiamat  in  the  fourth  line  of  the  poem.  In  view  of  the  fact  that 
Tiamat  originally  personified  “the  deep,’^  the  meaning  “turbulent’’ 
would  be  most  appropriate;  although,  as  stated  above,  the  thought 
implying  this,  as  characteristic  of  the  deity,  had  been  practically 
ehminated  from  the  myth  as  the  Babylonians  have  handed  it 
down. 

In  this  connection  let  us  briefly  discuss  another  title  of  Tiamat, 
namely  TJmmu  khubuTy  the  one  “who  formed  all  things.”  In  fine 
4,  as  we  have  seen,  another  epithet  of  the  goddess  reads,  “the 
bearer  of  all  of  them.” 

See  Muss-Arnolt,  Assyrian  Dictionary  pp.  552  f. 

Deimel  makes  Mummu  the  original  mother-goddess  (see  Orientalia  4,  p.  44). 

Hebrew  and  Babylonian  Traditions  p.  73. 


III.  THE  CREATION  STORY. 


95 


Professor  Zimmern  translated  khuhur  ^^deep/^  and  Pere  Dhorme, 
^‘totalit^/^  the  former  being  based  on  the  idea  that  Tiamat  was  a 
goddess  of  the  deep,  and  the  latter  on  the  idea  that  she  was  ^^the 
bearer  of  all  of  them’’;  but  there  is  no  root  for  either  idea  in  Baby¬ 
lonian.  All  other  scholars  had  left  the  word  untranslated. 

The  word  khuhur  also  occurs  in  the  so-called  Ea  and  Atra-khasis 
Epic,  where  with  the  exception  of  the  meaning  “totality,”  offered 
by  one  scholar,  it  has  been  left  untranslated  by  all  others.  In  a 
recent  study  of  the  legend,  I  found  that  the  word  was  glossed  by 
pukhru  assembly.”  In  view  of  the  fact  that  the  context  required 
such  a  meaning;  that  in  Plebrew  and  Aramaic  the  root  khahar 
means  ^Ho  join,  associate”;  and  because  there  are  derivatives  like 
kheher  company,”  khdher  “associate,”  etc.,  it  followed  that  khuhur 
was  unquestionably  an  Amorite  word,  having  the  same  meaning 
as  the  Babylonian  pukhru  “assembly.”  As  in  Greek  mythology, 
the  council  or  assembly  of  the  gods  is  here  referred  to;  the  idea 
figures  very  prominently  in  these  myths.  This  being  the  proper 
explanation  of  the  word,  and  since  Tiamat  was  the  “bearer  of  all 
of  them,”  and  the  one  “who  formed  all  things,”  I  have  proposed 
that  the  title  Ummu  khuhur  means  “mother  of  the  assembly,”  and 
that  it  was  unquestionably  Amorite.^* 

It  is  somewhat  fortunate  that  the  word  had  been  left  untrans¬ 
lated  by  all  except  in  the  instances  referred  to,  for  if  it  had  been 
construed  as  belonging  to  the  root  mentioned,  it  doubtless  would 
have  been  listed  as  a  Babylonian  word  which  the  Aramaeans  and 
Hebrews  had  borrowed  from  the  Babylonians.  If  my  explanation 
of  this  word  is  accepted,  it  naturally  follows  that  it  has  an  impor¬ 
tance  of  a  far-reaching  character. 

It  is  therefore  not  at  all  surprising  to  find  that  three  attempts 
have  already  been  made  in  reviews  which  have  appeared  to  explain 
khuhur  otherwise,  and  thus  avoid  admitting  that  it  is  Amorite.  In 
A  Hebrew  Deluge  Story  in  Cuneiform  p.  18. 


96 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


opposition  to  my  explanation  Doctor  Thompson  of  Oxford,  trans¬ 
lates  the  word  crowd,  noise (?),^^  but  offers  no  etymology.®^  For 
the  meaning  ^ ^ noise (?)’^  there  is  none;  and  if  ^ ^ crowd is  correct, 
it  can  only  be  from  the  same  Amorite  root  which  I  have  proposed. 
I  see,  therefore,  no  reason  whatever  for  accepting  this  guess.  The 
second  is  that  of  Luckenbill,  who,  without  a  semblance  of  etymo¬ 
logical  support,  translates  khuhuri  numbers.’^  This  need  not 
detain  us.®^ 

Professor  Sayce  sees  in  the  word  khuhur  the  name  of  “the  river 
of  death, which  the  dead  had  to  cross,  and  which  was  located  in 
the  north.®®  “Mother  of  the  river  of  death hardly  seems  appro¬ 
priate;  but  upon  what  is  this  meaning  based? 

Khubur,  as  is  well  known,  is  the  name  of  an  important  tributary 
or  “companion’^  river  of  the  Euphrates  in  Mesopotamia.  In  two 
texts,  Khuburru  is  the  name  of  a  country  in  north  Mesopotamia, 
called  also  Subartu.®^  In  a  religious  text,  the  words  urukh  me-lte] 
occurs  in  one  line,  and  in  the  following  is  mentioned  the  river 
Khubur.®®  If  the  restoration  is  correct,  the  two  words  mean  “road 
of  death. These  passages  are  brought  together  and  the  idea 
formulated  that  khuhur  is  the  name  of  the  river  of  death  which  the 
dead  had  to  cross,  and  which  is  located  in  the  north.®® 

If  the  thought  of  a  “river  of  death figures  in  the  Babylonian 
religion,  it  depends,  as  far  as  I  know,  upon  the  above  obscure  and 
reconstructed  passage.  I  only  desire  to  add  that  I  c^n  see  no 

The  London  Times  Literary  Supplement,  Oct.  12,  1922,  p.  646. 

®5See  AJSL,  39,  154.  Line  4  of  the  ancient  famine  story  he  translates:  ^‘the 
god  became  disturbed  by  their  (the  people^s)  numbers  (size).’’  Line  8:  ^Tecause 
of  their  numbers,  I(?)  will  proclaim  a  dispersion(?).”  These  translations  sound  as 
if  Luckenbill  confused  the  Biblical  stories  of  the  creation,  deluge,  and  the  tower 
of  Babel. 

Expository  Times,  1922,  Nov.  p.  76. 

See  Rawlinson  WAI,  II,  50:51,  and  V,  16:19. 

Craig,  Religious  Texts  I,  p.  44. 

See  Jensen,  Mythen  und  Epen  307  ff. 


ITT.  THE  CREATION  STORY. 


97 


reason  for  accepting  this  idea  in  connection  with  khubur  in  the 
texts  under  consideration,  where  a  meaning  like  assembly  fits 
the  context  perfectly;  nor  in  the  title  mother  khubur the  epithet 
of  the  goddess  in  the  myth,  who  is  credited  with  being  a  parent 
of  all  the  gods.  In  other  words,  I  see  no  reason  for  setting  aside 
my  own  explanation  of  the  word,  and  for  giving  up  my  firm  convic¬ 
tion  that  it  is  Amorite. 

Before  we  proceed  to  consider  the  names  of  other  deities  found 
in  this  poem,  let  me  ask  for  a  decision  on  the  question  as  to  whether 
the  words  Apsu,  Tiamat,  Mummu,  and  khubur  are  Babylonian  or 
Amorite.  For  these  four  words  used  as  names  and  titles,  as  we 
have  seen,  on  the  one  hand,  there  are  no  roots  in  Babylonian,  nor 
are  there  derivatives  from  the  roots,  ^.  6.,  it  is  not  possible  to  explain 
them  etymologically  on  the  basis  of  known  roots  in  that  language. 
On  the  other  hand,  in  Hebrew  we  have  not  only  the  corresponding 
words  in  use,  but  in  every  instance  verbal  forms  from  the  roots  to 
which  they  belong,  as  well  as  other  derivatives.  Under  these 
circumstances,  let  me  ask,  how  can  anyone  make  himself  believe 
that  they  are  of  Babylonian  origin?  It  seems  to  me  that  it  would 
be  about  as  easy  to  believe  that  the  word  “  Ocean  was  originally 
English,  from  which  language  it  was  borrowed  by  the  Greeks,  when 
it  became  Okeanos. 

Lakhmu  and  Lakhamu  in  the  poem  are  the  parents  of  the  inde- 
scribable  Anshar,  whom  they  had  endowed  with  an  equality  of  deity, 
and  also  the  ancestors  of  Anu  and  Ea.  When  Tiamat  had  planned 
revenge  for  the  death  of  Apsu,  Anshar  sent  his  messenger  to  inform 
his  parents  and  to  invite  them  and  all  the  gods  to  an  assembly  and 
feast.  It  is  impossible  to  conclude  otherwise  than  that  these  parents 
occupied  a  unique  position  in  the  poem,  as  it  was  originally  handed 
down.  What  role  did  they  play  in  the  Babylonian  pantheon? 

In  Babylonian  literature,  Lakhmu  and  Lakhamu  are  never  men¬ 
tioned  as  the  ancestors  of  Anu  or  Ea;  in  fact  they  are  unknown  in 


98 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


the  Babylonian  pantheon.  In  the  five  large  collections  of  names, 
we  do  not  find  a  single  instance  in  which  these  deities  appear.  This 
absence  in  the  nomenclature  of  the  country,  where  the  poem  is 
supposed  to  be  indigenous,  is  most  significant. 

In  Assyria,  the  pair  is  mentioned  in  several  different  versions  of  a 
list  of  gods.  Naturally  the  appropriation  of  the  poem  to  magnify 
Anshar,  the  deity  of  the  land,  would  account  for  this;  but  these 
deities  also  played  no  role  in  the  Assyrian  pantheon;  and  they  are 
not  found  in  the  nomenclature  of  the  land.  Moreover,  the  attempt 
to  replace  Lakhmu,  the  father  of  Anshar,  with  the  name  of  Ea,  in 
lines  78  and  89  of  Tablet  I,  confirms  the  idea  that  the  deity  is 
foreign. 

Among  the  monsters  in  the  poem,  created  by  Tiamat  to  assist 
her  in  her  fight,  is  the  goddess  Lakhamu  (1:134).  In  a  building 
inscription  of  an  early  king  of  Babylonia,  Agum-kakrime,  who 
ruled  in  the  seventeenth  century  B.  C.,  in  describing  his  adorning 
the  shrines  at  Babylon,  tells  us  that  he  had  his  workmen  carve 
figures  of  the  monsters,  over  whom  Marduk  triumphed;  among 
which,  as  in  the  myth,  he  included  Lakhamu.  Will  the  Baby- 
lonists,  who  hold  that  this  poem  originated  in  Babylonia,  explain 
these  facts,  including,  of  course,  the  fact  that  this  pair  are  the 
ancestors  of  Anu  and  Ea?  Unquestionably,  Lakhmu  and  Lakhamu 
were  foreign  deities. 

The  names  of  these  deities,  it  would  seem,  were  a  part  of  the 
narrative  as  it  reached  Babylonia,  but  they  doubtless  belonged  to 
the  West.  The  identification  of  Lakhmu  with  Beth-Lekhem  (Beth¬ 
lehem)  ,  the  name  of  two  cities  or  shrines  in  Palestine,  has  frequently 
been  suggested.  It  is  at  least  the  only  plausible  identification  that 
has  thus  far  been  made. 

It  has  been  suggested  that  the  names  of  the  pair  which  Lakhmu 
and  Lakhamu  created,  namely  Anshar  and  Kishar,  arose  through 
an  effort  made  by  Assyrian  scholars  to  include  their  god  Ashur 


III.  THE  CREATION  STORY. 


99 


among  those  of  the  poem.  Kishar  is  generally  thought  to  be  a 
pure  abstraction  of  the  late  time.  Moreover,  both  deities  seem 
superfluous.  Anshar,  it  seems  to  me,  has  usurped  the  place  of  El 
or  Ilu. 

In  the  edict  of  the  gods,  when  Marduk  was  made  preeminent, 
they  said,  ^Hhy  word  is  Anu  (originally  El).^^  When  Ea  exalted 
him,  ^‘he  endowed  him  with  an  equality  of  El.’’  These  and  other 
passages  make  it  reasonable  to  suppose  that  the  Marduk  schoolmen, 
who  rewrote  the  epic,  belittled  El,  as  they  also  did  Ea,  in  their 
efforts  to  magnify  their  own  deity.  The  Ashur  priests  apparently 
did  the  same  thing  by  introducing  Anshar,  and  using  for  him  the 
description  of  El  or  Anu. 

In  reading  the  magniloquent  description  of  Anshar  ^^who  was 
clothed  with  the  majesty  of  ten  gods”  (see  Appendix  A,  I,  83-102), 
one  cannot  help  feeling  that  this  originally  belonged  to  the  all- 
important  god  Ilu  or  El,  whose  name  was  later  S3aicretized  with, 
or  written  Anu.  Confirmation  of  the  conjecture  is  to  be  found  in 
connection  with  the  number  of  eyes  he  is  said  to  have  had  (see 
95  ff ) ;  for  we  learn  in  the  cosmogony  of  Sanchuniathon,  the  god 
Taautus  ‘‘contrived  also  for  Kronus  (or  El)  the  ensign  of  his  royal 
power,  having  four  eyes,  in  the  parts  before  and  in  the  parts  behind, 
two  of  them  closing  as  in  sleep.”  In  the  sixth  tablet  Anu,  or  El, 
appears  as  the  all-supreme  deity.  It  would  seem  that  the  Ashur 
priests  had  not  completed  their  task  of  editing  the  text  in  the 
interests  of  their  deity. 

We  now  come  to  the  fourth  group  of  gods  in  the  creation  story, 
Anu  (or  El),  Ea,  and  Marduk.  It  is  said  in  the  epic  that  Anu 
begat  Ea.  Although  the  text  is  incomplete  at  this  point,  we  know 
from  other  sources  that  Ea  begat  Marduk.  The  chief  deities  of 
the  early  deluge  story  included  Ilu,  Ea  and  Adad;  and  it  seems  to 
me  that  the  same  was  true  of  this  story  prior  to  its  revision  by  the 
priests  of  Marduk.  This  is  also  the  triad  of  the  Name  Syllabary, 


100 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


published  by  Chiera,  which  was  written  at  Nippur  in  the  third 
millennium  B.  C.,  but  which  obviously  is  of  even  greater  antiquity. 

El,  we  know  from  the  nomenclature,  was  an  Amorite  deity  of 
the  earliest  period.  El  and  Hadad  (Adad)  were  two  of  the  im¬ 
portant  deities  in  Syria  as  late  as  the  first  millennium  B.  C.  Accord¬ 
ing  to  the  Phoenician  mythology  of  Sanchuniathon,  El  or  Kronos, 
was  the  son  of  Ouranos  ^‘heaven,”  and  Ge  earth,”  who  were  the 
children  of  Elioun  ^^the  most  high.”  El,  this  mythology  tells  us, 
founded  Byblos,  the  first  city  in  Phoenicia,  which  he  gave  to  the 
goddess  Baaltis;  Egypt,  he  gave  to  Taautus  (Tiamat). 

El  or  An  was  the  foremost  deity  in  early  Babylonia.  It  is  not 
impossible  that  the  Sumerians  originally  had  a  deity  An,  meaning 
^‘heaven”  or  ‘^high,”  but  I  doubt  it.  Like  the  Greeks  who  adopted 
and  worshipped  Semitic  gods  under  a  disguise  that  was  very  trans¬ 
parent,  I  believe  that  the  Sumerians,  after  they  had  come  into  the 
country,  also  adopted  the  gods  of  the  Semites.  There  are  many 
reasons  for  this  view.®®  The  Sumerian  An,  meaning  ^^high”  or 
^^heaven,”  En-Lil  “lord  of  the  storm,”  En-Ki  “lord  of  the  earth,” 
Nin-Kharsag  “lady  of  the  mountain,”  Nin-Edinu  “lady  of  the 
plain,”  Nin-Erinu  “lady  of  the  cedar,”  Nin-Mar^*,  “lady  of  the  city 
Mari,”  etc. — these  are  not  names;  they  are  epithets.  Names  of 
deities,  such  as  El,  Ea,  and  Adad;  Osiris,  Isis,  and  Horus;  Zeus, 
Apollo  and  Hera;  or  even  Yahweh,  as  everyone  knows,  are  not  so 
easily  explained. 

I  feel  that  I  have  satisfactorily  shown  elsewhere  that  the  wor¬ 
ship  of  Anu  was  brought  by  the  Amorites  into  the  land,  very 
probably  from  *Ana  on  the  Euphrates. It  is  possible  that  the 
Western  Semites  originally  worshipped  two  gods,  named  El  and 
*Ana  (or  Khana),  who  in  time  became  syncretized.  But  probably 
*Ana  was  originally  an  epithet  of  El.  The  Babylonian  form  of  the 

See  also  Meyer,  Sumener  und  Semiten  in  Babylonien. 

The  Empire  of  the  Amorites  116  ff;  168;  and  178. 


III.  THE  CREATION  STORY. 


101 


name,  Ann,  arose  from  the  use  of  the  Sumerian  sign  AN  to  represent 
the  name  of  the  deity.  Certainly  a  more  appropriate  sign  to  repre¬ 
sent  the  name  of  ^El  ^elydn  the  ^^most  high  god^’  of  the  Semites, 
namely  AN,  meaning  “high’^  and  also  “heaven,’^  could  not  have 
been  selected.  That  AN  could  have  become  Semitized  into  Anu, 
is  perfectly  clear  when  we  know  that  the  epithet  of  the  storm-god, 
En-Lil  ^‘Lord  of  the  storm,^’  became  Ellil.  Moreover,  An,  or  Anu, 
was  regarded  as  the  same  as  Ilu,  or  El. 

At  Erech,  the  name  of  the  temple  of  this  god,  as  in  the  case  of 
all  names  of  temples  in  Babylonia,  was  written  in  Sumerian,  E-Anna. 
This  name,  I  believe,  originally  meant  not  “house  of  heaven,”  but 
“house  of  El,”  ^.  e.,  Beth-El.  At  Babylon,  El  is  found  in  the  city^s 
name,  Bab-El,  “Gate  of  El.”  While  in  time,  Marduk  supplanted 
El,  the  original  patron  deity  of  the  city,  we  find  Hammurabi  not 
only  crediting  “Ilu,  king  of  the  Anunnaki,”  with  having  committed 
the  rule  of  mankind  to  Marduk,  but  together  with  Ellil,  as  having 
raised  the  towers  of  Babylon. El  is  also  found,  as  already  men¬ 
tioned,  in  the  name  of  Der,  which  was  written  Dur-El,  “Fortress 
of  El.”  It  is  obvious  that  El  was  also  the  foremost  deity  of  this 
city;  and  yet  it  was  known  as  “the  city  of  Anu.”®^  Certainly  this 
fact  seems  to  confirm  the  idea  that  Anu  arose  through  the  use  of 
the  ideogran  AN  for  the  name  of  El.  It  might  be  added  that  the 
name  of  the  only  known  king  of  this  city  of  the  early  period,  is 
Anu-mutabil. 

I  believe  if  a  version  of  the  Enuma  elish  is  found  belonging  to 
the  early  period,  that,  like  the  deluge  story,  the  name  of  the  chief 
deity  will  be  written  Ilu  or  El,  instead  of  Anu.  When  the  priests 
of  Babylon  rewrote  the  epic,  throughout  it  they  ascribed  the 
prerogatives  of  El  to  their  god  Marduk.  For  example  in  exalting 
him,  the  gods  are  made  to  say,  “thy  word  is  Anu”  (IV: 4);  but 

*2  See  A  Hebrew  Deluge  Story  p.  29. 

*3  See  KeiUnschriftUche  Bihliotheh  III  1,  165:4. 


102 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


in  a  passage  found  in  the  sixth  tablet  (98),  the  original  name  is 
found,  where  the  gods  are  made  to  say:  ^^for  us,  whatever  name  we 
mention,  he  is  our 

I  have  already  given  my  conception  of  the  god  Ea;  how,  when 
this  '^lord  of  the  land^^  migrated  to  Eridu,  on  the  sea,  he  became 
the  god  of  the  deep,  where  for  millenniums  his  cult  developed 
independently. 

One  of  the  ideograms  which  represented  the  name  Ea  was  En-Ki, 
which  means  “lord  of  the  earth.^^  He  was  also  “lord  of  springs,^' 
and  designated  as  ^Hhe  potter,’’  “the  great  artificer,”  showing  his 
identity  with  a  mountainous  land,  where  metals  were  found. 

Another  common  ideogram,  written  E-A,  meaning  “house  of 
water,”  was  used  to  represent  the  name  of  the  god  Ea.  The  latter 
may  be  a  graphic  expedient,  on  the  part  of  the  Sumerian  scribes, 
which  probably  approximately  represented  the  pronunciation  of 
the  god’s  name  (which  is  certainly  very  close  to  Jah),  and  at  the 
same  time  described  one  of  his  characteristics,  as  god  of  the  water, 
which  he  especially  became  at  Eridu.  Let  me  repeat  here  some  of 
the  reasons  which  I  have  given  elsewhere  for  the  statement  that 
Ea  is  Amorite. 

In  the  Name-Syllabary  found  at  Nippur,  copied  in  the  third 
millennium  B.  C.,  but  doubtless  of  much  greater  antiquity,  Ea  is 
found  in  a  group  which  occurs  a  number  of  times,  as  follows:  Hu, 
Ea,  and  Adad(IM).  This,  as  I  believe,  was  the  earliest  Semitic 
triad  in  Babylonia  before  Enlil  displaced  Ea  as  second  in  order,  and 
before  Hu  was  Babylonized,  by  the  use  of  the  sign  AN,  into  Anu. 
It  shows  also  that  the  explanatory  list  of  gods,  which  begins  with 
Hu  instead  of  Anu,  and  is  followed  by  Ea,  not  Enlil,  very  probably 
also  goes  back  to  this  early  period. 

In  the  same  archive  at  Nippur,  an  Amorite  Name-Syllabary 
was  discovered,  also  belonging  to  the  early  period;  and  in  it  the 
following  groups  are  found,  consisting  of:  El,  Ea,  and  Nebo;  El, 


III.  THE  CREATION  STORY. 


103 


Ea,  and  Ashirta;  Dagan,  Ea,  and  Ashirta;  also  [?],  Ea,  and  Dagan. 
This  Name-Syllabary,  which  contains  only  Amorite  deities,  is  a 
most  significant  proof  that  Ea  is  Amorite. 

A  study  of  the  nomenclature  of  the  Manishtusu  obelisk  (about 
2775  B.  C.),  reveals  many  Amorite  names  compounded  with  that 
of  this  deity.  Especially  interesting  are  such  groups  as  Aku-ilum 
and  Aku-Ea;  Ikrub-Ilu  and  Ikrub-Ea;  Iti-Ilu,  Iti-Ea  and  Iti- 
Dagan,  etc.®^ 

The  lack  of  excavations  in  Amurru  is  again  felt,  yet  with  the  help 
of  the  Amarna  letters  we  are  not  without  some  light  on  the  subject 
from  that  quarter.  In  letters  from  Mitanni,  we  find  Ea  is  syncre- 
tized  with  Sharru,  as  Ea-Sharru,  in  two  lists  of  deities. During 
the  same  period  this  deity  was  also  worshipped  in  Babylonia,  as 
shown  by  the  personal  names.®®  At  Calah,  Ashur-nasir-apal  erected 
a  statue  to  Ea-sharri.  Still  another  reason  for  regarding  Ea  as  an 
Amorite  deity  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  the  god  appears  in 
the  same  position  in  the  triad  of  the  early  version  of  the  deluge 
story,  as  in  the  Name-Syllabary,  i.  c.,  Ilu,  Ea,  and  Adad. 

It  is  held  that  Marduk  usurped  the  position  of  Enlil.  I  do  not 
think  the  original  story  mentioned  Enlil.  A  glance  at  the  closing 
line  of  the  Fourth  Tablet  makes  it  very  apparent  that  his  name  has 
been  forcibly  introduced  into  the  poem  at  that  point.  In  VI:  43 
we  have  the  triad  Marduk,  Enlil,  and  Ea. 

A  careful  study  of  the  story  will  not  fail  to  reveal  the  fact  that 
Marduk  supplanted  El.  When  the  gods  desired  to  honor  him,  as 
mentioned  above,  they  commanded:  ^^his  word  is  Anu  (originally 
El).’^  While  in  the  Old  Testament,  Yahweh  slew  the  dragon,  there 
is  little  difficulty  in  understanding  that  El  was  the  name  used  at 
an  earlier  time.  A  Greek  myth  seems  to  add  force  to  this  conclusion. 

See  Scheil,  Delegation  en  Perse  II,  41  ff. 

«\See  Knudtzon,  El-AmarnohTaJeln  24:76,  101. 

Clay,  Personal  Names  of  the  Cassite  Period  p.  148. 


104 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


The  story  of  the  contest  between  Kronos  (whose  other  name  was 
El),  and  Ophioneus  (which  name  means  ‘^dragon’’),  was  handed 
down  by  Pherecydes,  who,  it  was  understood,  did  not  derive  it  from 
Greece  or  Egypt,  but,  according  to  Philo,  obtained  it  from  the 
Phoenicians.  Kronos  was  the  leader  of  one  host,  and  Ophioneus 
of  the  other.  It  reads:  ^‘He  relates  of  challenges  and  combats 
between  them,  and  that  they  make  a  treaty  that  whichever  (side) 
of  them  shall  fall  into  Ogenes  (for  Okeanos  ocean shall  be 
conquered,  and  those,  who  shall  thrust  them  off  and  conquer  them, 
shall  have  heaven. This  is  obviously  another  version  of  the 
conflict. 

The  name  of  the  messenger  Gaga,  is  also  Amorite.  We  find  that 
Sennacherib,  in  giving  a  list  of  twenty  deities  which  he  invoked  at 
the  close  of  a  building  inscription,  mentions  such  Amorite  gods  as 
Khani,  Gaga,  Sherua,  Nikkal,  etc.,  doubtless  in  the  interests  of 
those  who  had  taken  part  in  the  work.  Gaga  was  never  included 
in  the  pantheon  of  the  Babylonians  or  Ass3nrians.  The  name 
appears  in  the  Amorite  Name-Syllabary;  and  it  is  probably  found 
in  the  name  Idin-Kakka,  king  of  Khani  (in  Amurru).  More¬ 
over,  I  do  not  believe  that  scholars  will  question  the  Amorite  origin 
of  this  deity. 

In  presenting  the  above  facts  and  theories  concerning  El,  Ea, 
and  Marduk,  while  I  am  convinced  of  their  vahdity,  I  realize  that 
for  some  time  they  will  doubtless  be  regarded  as  mooted,  because 
the  conclusions  involved  are  so  different  from  those  conrimonly 
accepted.  In  view  of  this  fact,  and  in  order  to  avoid  having  the 
issue  befogged  by  criticisms  of  such  points,  which  are  not  neces¬ 
sarily  pertinent,  and  especially  since  there  is  more  than  abundance 
of  proof  without  them,  I  am  quite  willing  that  the  facts  and  theories 
above  presented  as  regards  El,  Ea,  and  Marduk,  as  well  as  concem- 

From  Origen,  Contra  Celsum  vi  42  (Diels,  Fragmente  der  Versokratiker  ii,  p. 
203). 


III.  THE  CREATION  STORY. 


105 


ing  Anshar  and  Kishar,  be  left  out  of  consideration  in  this  connec¬ 
tion.  This,  however,  does  not  apply  to  the  primaevals,  Apsu, 
Tiamat,  and  Mummu,  nor  to  Lakmu,  and  Lakhamu,  as  well  as  to 
Gaga. 

The  importance  of  such  onomastic  studies  has  already  been 
referred  to.  There  can  be  httle  doubt  but  that  we  have  here  a 
crucial  test  of  the  whole  thesis.  The  occurrence  of  these  foreign 
deities  as  the  chief  actors  in  this  poem,  unquestionably  shows  that 
the  poem  is  of  foreign  origin. 

In  discussing  under  the  fourth  division  of  arguments  or  reasons 
for  the  Amorite  origin  of  this  story  what  I  regard  as  literary  evidence, 
I  fully  appreciate,  as  already  stated,  that  I  am  treading,  at  least  in 
part,  on  ground  that  fresh  discoveries  may  modify,  but  also  against 
which  some  followers  of  Babylonism  can  present  a  display  of 
philological  knowledge,  so  that  the  non-Assyriologist  may  be 
impressed  with  its  importance.  In  connection  with  the  deluge 
story,  evidence  that  is  beyond  cavil  can  be  presented.  In  this 
instance,  unfortunately,  having  only  recensions  of  the  poem  that 
belonged  to  a  comparatively  late  period,  after  it  had  been  edited 
several  times,  we  doubtless  have  little  remaining  of  the  original 
story.  Nevertheless,  a  few  words  have  been  preserved  for  us,  and 
in  the  very  place  we  should  naturally  expect  to  find  them,  namely 
in  the  few  lines  at  the  beginning  of  the  poem,  bearing  on  the  pri¬ 
maeval  period. 

The  first  Amorite  word  to  be  noted  is  ammatum  in  the  second  line, 
which,  according  to  the  context,  should  mean  earth,  ground,  the 
earth’s  surface,”  in  contrast  to  ^^the  heavens.”  All  translators, 
following  Smith,  have  recognized  this  meaning.  The  word  is 
otherwise  unknown  in  Babylonian  literature.  The  variant  form 
ah-ha-tu,^^  found  in  the  Ashur  version,  clearly  shows  that  it  is  a 
See  Kdlschrifttexte  aus  Assur^  Religidsen  Inhalts  162  :  2. 


106 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


foreign  word.  Probably  some  day  it  will  be  found  in  a  Babylonian 
explanatory  list  of  foreign  or  obsolete  words.  Jensen  has  correctly 
compared  it  with  ammoth  ^Hhe  ground’^  of  the  threshold,  Isa.  6:4.®® 
It  is  unquestionably  the  same  word. 

The  question  can  here  be  raised,  since  in  the  Hebrew  story 
adamah  ground’^  as  the  earth^s  surface,  takes  the  place  of  this 
word,  whether  it  is  not  possible  to  regard  admatu  as  the  origin  of 
ammatu.  But  let  it  be  clearly  understood  that  this  is  a  mere 
suggestion  for  consideration. 

The  words  Apsu,  Mummu,  and  Tiamat  have  already  been  dis¬ 
cussed.  The  fourth  word  is  gipara,  in  line  seven.  This  has  been 
translated  ^^Gefilde^^  by  Delitzsch;  ^^Baume^^  by  Jensen;  field 
by  King  and  Barton;  ^^soiP’  by  Jastrow;  ^^Strauchwerk^^  by 
Ebeling;  reeds’^  by  Luckenbill;  ^^Festland^^  by  Ungnad,  etc. 
The  context  suggests  the  meaning  '^dry  ground,  earth,  land.^^  It 
seems  as  if  it  is  an  Amorite  word,  like  ipru  or  the  Hebrew  "dpdr, 
^^dry  ground,  dirt,  earth.^^  As  is  well  known,  strong  'ayin  is  repro¬ 
duced  by  g  in  Babylonian,  e.g.,  rigmu;  as  well  as  by  g  in  Greek,  e.g.j 
Gaza.  If  it  should  prove  correct  that  gipar  is  the  equivalent  of  the 
Hebrew  *apar,  we  would  have  an  example  of  weak  'ayin  being 
represented  by  g.  Probably  the  word  in  early  Hebrew  was  pro¬ 
nounced  also  as  if  it  had  a  strong  ^ayin^  for  in  the  Amarna  letters, 
"dpdr  is  written  khaparu;  and,  moreover,  as  Professor  Torrey  has 
suggested,  it  may  be  connected  with  the  Arabic  ghahar  which  has 
the  same  meanings,  ^^dust,  earth,  etc.^’ 

The  Hebrew  'dpdr  is  used  in  the  same  sense  in  the  Old  Testament. 
Note  the  passage  in  which  ^The  fruits  of  the  earth  of  the  world 
are  mentioned  (Prov.  8:26).  It  is  also  found  in  passages  having 
a  cosmological  significance:  ^^who  hath  measured  the  waters  in 
the  hollow  of  his  hand  and  meted  out  the  heavens  with  a  span  and 
comprehended  the  dirt  ('dpdr)  of  the  earth  as  a  measure  (Is.  40 : 12). 


Jensen,  Mythen  und  Epen  p.  302. 


III.  THE  CREATION  STORY. 


107 


The  sixth  word  is  susd  in  the  same  line,  which  has  been  translated 
^^Rohrdickicht^^  by  Jensen;  and  ^ ^ marsh or  marshland’^  by  all 
others  except  Jastrow,  who  has  surmised  its  meaning,  and  trans¬ 
lated  it  ^Hhe  shoot.’’ 

In  Hebrew,  we  have  the  word  s’sd^  meaning  ^Tssue  of  man” 
and  issue  of  the  earth.”  It  seems  evident  that  this  is  the  same 
word  that  is  in  the  creation  story.  Note  the  parallel  thought 
expressed  in  the  following  passage:  ^^he  that  created  the  heavens 
and  stretched  them  forth;  he  that  spread  forth  the  earth  and  the 
things  which  come  out  of  it  (s'^’/d’),”  Is.  42:5. 

These  six  words,  including  those  of  the  gods  mentioned,  are  in 
the  first  six  lines.  In  the  lines  which  follow,  besides  the  title 
Ummu-khuhur  and  the  names  Lakhmu,  Lakhamu,  Gaga,  etc., 
discussed  above,  there  seem  to  be  comparatively  few  distinct  in¬ 
dications  of  the  original  source.  Moreover,  the  literary  marks 
indicating  the  origin  of  the  poem,  have,  as  already  stated,  nearly 
all  been  removed  or  Babylonized  by  the  different  redactors. 

I  feel  in  this  discussion  of  the  Babylonian  origin  of  the  Biblical 
stories  of  creation,  that  there  is  little  left  to  which  those  who  will 
continue  to  hold  the  theory  can  cling.  If  they  seem  to  think  there 
is,  let  us  have  their  evidence;  it  will  be  welcome.  Beyond  the 
statement  that  the  proof  offered  in  the  four  groups  of  evidence  is 
more  than  sufficient  to  prove  the  utter  baselessness  of  the  theory, 
it  seems  unnecessary  to  summarize  what  has  been  presented  in 
this  chapter,  as  well  as  what  bears  on  the  subject  in  the  one  which 
precedes. 


IV 


ADAM,  THE  GARDEN  OF  EDEN,  AND  THE  FALL 

In  the  past  fifty  years  a  number  of  attempts  have  been  made  not 
only  to  find  Babylonian  parallels  for  the  stories  of  Adam,  Eden, 
and  the  Fall  of  Man,  but  to  prove  that  these  stories  originated  in 
Babylonian  mythology. 

In  1875,  George  Smith  announced  in  an  English  newspaper  that 
he  had  found  what  he  had  regarded  for  ^Hhe  general  public  the 
most  interesting  and  the  most  remarkable  cuneiform  tablet  yet 
discovered.’’  He  said  it  contained  ^Hhe  story  of  man’s  original 
innocence,  of  his  temptation,  and  fall.”^  Naturally  this  announce¬ 
ment  was  echoed  far  and  wide.  However,  in  a  very  short  time 
scholars  showed  that  Smith  was  mistaken  in  his  translation;  and 
his  view  was  abandoned. 

Not  many  years  later  Delitzsch  endeavored  to  locate  Eden  in 
Babylonia,  where  besides  the  Tigris  and  Euphrates  he  identified 
the  Bison  as  the  Pallicopas  canal,  and  the  Gihon  as  the  Gukhande 
(also  called  Arakhtu).^  This  view  also  has  been  abandoned. 

Another  effort  was  also  made  to  locate  Eden  at  Eridu  in  South¬ 
ern  Babylonia.  The  Babylonian  story  of  the  nature  and  position 
of  Eden,  it  was  said,  is  to  be  found  in  an  incantation  text,  where: 

(in)  Eridu  a  dark  vine  grew;  it  was  made  in  a  glorious  place;  its 
appearance  (as)  lapis-lazuli  planted  beside  the  abyss,”  etc.*  The 
first  man,  Adam,  we  are  told,  was  a  Sumerian,  who  had  been  created 
in  Eridu  (the  good  city);  and  here,  therefore,  the  Babylonian 
Semite  placed  the  home  of  the  first  ancestor  of  his  race.  This 

1  Daily  Telegraph  (London)  March  4,  1875. 

2  Delitzsch,  Wo  Lag  das  Paradies  1881. 

*  Sayce,  Hihbert  Lectures  on  the  Religion  of  the  Ancient  Babylonians  p.  238. 


(108) 


IV.  ADAM,  THE  GARDEN  OF  EDEN,  AND  THE  FALL.  109 

belief,  we  are  further  told,  the  Semite  ^‘borrowed  along  with  the 
other  elements  of  Babylonian  culture’’  .  .  .  ^^Like  the  story  of 
the  deluge  it  was  part  of  the  Sumerian  heritage  into  which  the 
Semite  had  entered.”^ 

One  of  the  traditions  handed  down  by  the  Babylonians,  referring 
to  Eridu,  is  known  as  the  Legend  of  Adapa,  which,  although  it  has 
very  slight  resemblance  to  the  story  of  Adam  and  his  fall,  it  is 
claimed,  was  transformed  and  recast  into  that  story.  Others 
regard  this  legend  as  a  direct  prototype  which  had  certain  influences 
upon  the  development  of  the  Genesis  story. 

Fragments  of  this  legend  which  belonged  to  the  Library  of 
Nineveh,  are  now  found  in  the  British  Museum  and  in  the  Pierpont 
Morgan  Library;  the  principal  portion  of  it,  however,  was  dis¬ 
covered  among  the  Amarna  archives  in  Egypt,  where  it  was  used 
as  a  text-book  to  study  the  Babylonian  language;  this  is  now  in 
the  Berlin  Museum. 

For  many  years  Professor  Sayce  has  held  that  Adapa  was  identical 
with  Adam,  and  that  the  name  Adapa  could  be  read  Adam.  More 
recently  it  was  found  that  the  sign  pa  had  the  rare  value  ma,  which 
he  felt  supported  his  view  that  Adapa  is  to  be  read  Adawa^  and 
that  this  is  identical  with  Adam.®  Others,  however,  have  since 
called  attention  to  the  fact  that  this  name  is  frequently  written 
A-da-pa{d),  which  makes  the  reading  Adamu  impossible.®  Fol¬ 
lowing  is  an  outline  of  the  Adapa  legend. 

The  god  Ea  had  given  great  wisdom  to  a  certain  sage,  named 
Adapa,  who  was  a  priest  of  Eridu,  in  order  that  he  might  reveal  the 
fate  of  the  land;  '^but  eternal  life  he  had  not  given  him.”  He 
was  a  zealous  priest  of  the  sanctuary;  he  baked  bread,  and  pro¬ 
vided  food  by  fishing  in  the  sea.  One  day  while  exercising  the 

<  Sayce,  Archaeology  of  the  Cuneiform  Inscriptions  p.  91. 

‘  Archaeology  of  the  Cuneiform  Inscriptions  p.  91,  note  1. 

« Langdon,  Sumerian  Epic  of  Paradise  p.  64,  note  1. 


110 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


latter  function  of  his  office,  the  south-wind  capsized  his  boat,  when 
in  revenge  he  broke  its  wings  so  that  for  seven  days  it  blew  not 
upon  the  land;  whereupon  he  was  summoned  to  appear  in  heaven, 
before  Anu. 

In  preparation  for  his  visit  to  Anu,  his  god  Ea  instructed  him 
how  to  excite  the  sympathy  of  the  demi-gods  he  would  meet  at  the 
portal  of  heaven.  He  told  him  to  appear  in  a  mourning  garment, 
and  when  asked  for  the  reason,  to  reply  that  it  was  because  two 
gods  had  disappeared  from  the  land.  And  on  being  asked  who 
these  gods  were,  to  say  that  they  were  Tammuz  and  Gish-Zidda. 
These,  being  the  same  with  whom  he  would  be  speaking,  would 
look  in  amazement  at  one  another;  and  then  they  would  intercede 
before  Anu  in  his  behalf.  Ea  further  instructed  Adapa : 

When  thou  comest  into  the  presence  of  Anu,  they  will  offer  thee 
food  of  death;  do  not  eat  it. 

They  will  offer  thee  water  of  death;  do  not  drink  it. 

They  will  offer  thee  a  dress;  put  it  on. 

They  will  offer  thee  oil,  anoint  thyself  with  it. 

The  advice  that  I  give  thee,  do  not  neglect; 

The  word  that  I  tell  thee,  observe. 

Adapa  made  his  appearance  in  heaven  as  instructed.  Every¬ 
thing  happened  as  foretold.  Anu^s  anger  was  appeased,  and  he 
ordered  that  they 

Bring  him  food  of  life  that  he  may  eat. 

Food  of  life  they  brought  him;  he  did  not  eat; 

Water  of  life  they  brought  him;  he  did  not  drink. 

A  dress  they  brought  him;  he  put  it  on.  Oil 

They  brought  him;  he  anointed  himself. 

When  Anu  saw  this  he  was  amazed  (and  said) : 

Now  Adapa,  why  didst  thou  not  eat?  Why  didst  thou  not  drink? 

Now  wilt  thou  not  remain  alive.  (He  replied)  Ea  my  lord 

Said :  Thou  shalt  not  eat,  thou  shalt  not  drink. 

(Anu  said)  Take  him  and  bring  him  back  to  earth. 


IV.  ADAM,  THE  GARDEN  OF  EDEN,  AND  THE  FALL.  Ill 

The  balance  of  the  legend  is  poorly  preserved,  and  not  very  well 
understood.  Some  lines  are  suggestive  of  its  having  been  used, 
like  so  many  of  the  legends,  for  incantation  purposes : 

And  what  evil  he  imposed  upon  the  people, 

[And]  the  disease  which  in  the  body  of  men  he  imposed. 

That  will  the  goddess  Ninkarrak  allay. 

Let  illness  depart;  let  sickness  turn  aside. 

[Upon]  that  [man]  let  his  terror  fall; 

. he  shall  not  rest  in  good  sleep. 

The  significance  of  these  lines  is  not  understood.  The  balance  of 
the  text  is  missing. 

Certain  scholars  have  made  extensive  comparisons  between 
Genesis  and  this  legend.^  It  seems  to  me  that  there  is  but  one  clear 
thought  that  this  legend  has  in  common  with  the  Old  Testament, 
and  that  is  that  the  gift  of  Jinmprtality  was  connected  with  the 
eating  of  the  food  of  hfe ;  although  even  this  thought  is  not  parallel, 
for  Adam  through  disobedience  ate  of  the  food  in  order  to  become 
hke  God,  and  Adapa  through  obedience  to  his  deity’s  counsel, 
refused  it.  Perhaps  the  lone  thought  that  Genesis  and  the  Adapa 
legend  have  in  common  is  that  man  forfeited  immortality  by  his 
own  act. 

As  is  well  known,  many  ancient  legends  have  already  been 
recovered  concerning  men  seeking  immortality.^  Naturally  it  is 
reasonable  to  believe  that  this  thought  was  uppermost  in  the  mind 
of  man  in  ancient  times,  as  it  is  at  present. 

It  is  interesting,  however,  to  note  that  Sir  James  G.  Frazer  was 
not  sufficiently  impressed  by  this  contention  even  to  mention  the 
Legend  of  Adapa  as  a  parallel  to  the  story  of  the  fall,  in  his  Folk¬ 
lore  in  the  Old  Testament.  He  records  some  stories  where  men 
missed  the  gift  of  immortality  because  of  disobedience  or  accidents, 

’  See  for  example,  Barton,  Archaeology  and  the  Bible  260  ff. 

•  Frazer,  Belief  in  Immortality  I,  59  ff. 


112 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


and  that  serpents  and  other  animals  had  obtained  it,  for  whose 
subtlety  they  were  hated;  but  the  Adapa  Legend  is  not  even  re¬ 
ferred  to.  Among  others  he  includes  the  Gilgamesh  story  of  how 
the  existence  of  the  magic  plant  of  immortality  was  revealed;  and 
how  the  serpent  had  stolen  it  while  he  was  bathing.  Another 
immortality  story  is  to  be  seen  in  the  Etana  Legend.®  Doubtless 
many  others  will  be  found  as  investigations  proceed. 

Adapa  was  a  priest  of  Eridu,  and  ^‘a  sage  among  men.^^  The 
reference  in  the  legend  to  the  two  kings  who  had  disappeared  and 
had  become  demi-gods,  would  show  that  he  lived  at  a  time  subse¬ 
quent  to  them.  According  to  the  recently  discovered  dynastic 
lists  they  ruled  about  4200  B.  C.  There  is  no  indication  in  the  poem 
that  it  belongs  to  the  beginning  of  man’s  history — in  fact,  every¬ 
thing  in  it  points  to  an  advanced  state  of  civilization.  In  this 
connection  I  cannot  agree,  therefore,  with  those  who,  believing 
that  Adapa  was  the  ancestor  of  the  human  race,  do  not  think  ^Tt 
wise  to  test  mythological  and  poetic  statements  by  the  strictures 
of  logic. Moreover,  if  in  the  light  of  facts  contained  in  this 
discussion,  especially  concerning  the  migration  of  religious  ideas, 
there  are  those  who  can  still  satisfy  themselves  that  this  legend  has 
furnished  the  idea  for  the  writer  of  the  Old  Testament  story  of 
Adam  and  the  fall,  nothing  that  I  can  add  will  cause  them  to  change 
their  views. 

A  few  years  ago  Professor  Langdon  of  Oxford  published  a  f 
Sumerian  tablet  which  was  announced  as  containing  the  origin  of 
the  Hebrew  story  of  Paradise,  and  as  showing  that  the  geographical 
description  of  the  Genesis  story  was  obviously  derived  from 
Sumero-babylonian  cosmology.”  In  the  same  tablet  he  also 
found  the  origin  of  the  story  of  the  Fall  of  Man,  which  he  said 
“is  a>  masterly  combination  of  the  Eridu  doctrine  known  to  us  in 

See  A  Hebrew  Deluge  Story  34  f. 

Langdon,  Sumerian  Epic  of  Paradise  p.  40,  note  3. 

y..  —  — 


r 


IV.  ADAM,  THE  GARDEN  OF  EDEN,  AND  THE  FALL.  113 

the  Semitic  legend  of  Adapa,  and  the  doctrine  of  our  Nippur  tablet. 

It  was  held  that  the  tablet  also  contained  the  story  of  the  flood. 

A  verdict  was  promptly  given  on  these  conclusions  by  a  number 
of  scholars,  which  was  that  the  proper  interpretation  of  the  text 
excluded  the  suggested  Biblical  parallels.^^  is  now  generally 
thought  that  the  tablet  is  a  mythical  account  of  the  origin  of  a  city, 
and  the  beginnings  of  agriculture/ 

Still  more  recently  another  announcement  has  been  made  of  / 
what  is  claimed  to  be  the  discovery  of  ^^the  clearest  and  most 
complete  account  of  the  Sumerian  story  of  the  Fall  of  Man,  as 
known  to  the  priestly  writers  of  Nippur. Like  the  statements 
of  George  Smith  and  others,  this  has  been  echoed  and  re-echoed 
everywhere  in  the  daily  press.  I  regret  to  say  that  I  cannot  follow 
the  writer ;  I  do  not  believe  that  the  text  has  any  bearing  whatsoever 
upon  the  story  of  the  Garden  of  Eden  or  the  Fall  of  Man. 

The  contentions  of  Professor  Chiera  rest  largely  on  the  meanings 
of  several  words,  which  he  holds  show  the  mythological  character 
of  the  tablet,  and  which  make  his  Biblical  parallel  possible.  Chief 
among  these  are  kin-guhy  which  he  translates  “garden’^  or  ^Tand,’^ 
and  two  new  words  which  he  regards  as  representing  ^Two  legendary 
trees  of  the  garden,’^  namely,  gish-gi-tug-gij  which  he  translates 
^‘tree  which  establishes  (the  use)  of  clothing,’^  seeing  in  the  word 
that  which  ^‘brings  into  more  prominent  light  the  story  of  the  fig 
tree  out  of  the  leaves  of  which  the  first  wearing  apparel  was  made’^; 

“  Langdon,  Sumerian  Epic  of  Paradise^  the  Flood,  and  the  Fall  of  Man.  See  also 
Proc.  Soc.  Bib.  Arch.  36,  188  ff  and  253  ff.,  Jour.  Amer.  Or.  Soc.  36,  140  ff.,  and 
Amer.  Jour.  Sem.  Lang.  33,  245  ff. 

12  See  Sayce,  Expository  Times  1915  88  ff.,  Jastrow,  Amer.  Jour.  Sem.  Lang.  33, 

91  ff..  Jour.  Amer.  Or.  Soc.  36,  122  ff.,  and  274  £f.,  Barton,  Amer.  Jour.  Theol.  1917, 
671  ff.,  and  Archaeology  and  the  Bible  282  ff..  Prince,  Jour.  Amer.  Or.  Soc.  36,  90  ff., 
Witzel,  Keilinschriftliche  Studien  I  51  ff .,  Albright,  Amer.  Jour.  Sem.  Lang.  35, 161  ff., 
Mercer,  Jour.  Soc.  Bibl.  Res.  1818,  51  ff..  King,  Schweich  Lectures  1918,  p.  126. 

”  Chiera,  Amer.  Jour.  Sem.  Lang.  39,  40  ff. 


114 


THE  OKIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


and  gi-ush-du,  which  he  translates,  ‘‘the  reed  which  frees  from 
death, which  he  holds  is  “a  very  good  name  for  the  tree  of  life.^’ 

The  last  two  mentioned  Sumerian  words,  in  the  absence  of  an 
explanatory  list  or  a  context  which  throws  light  on  their  meaning, 
can  be  translated  in  many  different  ways,  since  they  are  both 
composed  of  three  separate  signs  or  words  which  have  many  different 
meanings. It  is  possible  to  select  from  the  more  than  one  hundred 
values  of  these  signs,  without  these  helps,  such  combinations  having 
meanings  that  would  fit  into  almost  any  explanation,  even  to 
making  the  one  group  mean  “tree  of  life.’^  Some  day  an  explan¬ 
atory  list  will  probably  be  found,  when  the  exact  meaning  of  these 
words  will  become  known. 

The  Sumerian  word  kin-guby  as  proposed,  probably  means 
“garden’’;  but  the  context  shows  it  was  a  vegetable  garden,  and 
not  as  Chiera  proposes,  “the  garden  harboring  the  tree  of  life.” 
The  legend,  even  on  the  basis  of  his  own  translation,  it  seems  to 
me,  refers  to  “sons  of  menials”  being  sent  away  from  the  estate, 
probably  for  stealing;  who  shall  not  return  to  lead  the  ox,  to  irrigate 
and  till  the  field,  and  to  cultivate  the  garden.  Others  shall  do  this; 
and  their  parents  shall  eat  of  the  food.  Then  follows  what  appears 
to  be  the  citing  of  a  penalty  of  “ten  measures  of  barley,”  apparently 
referring  to  the  overt  act  of  the  “sons  of  the  menials.” 

This  is  what  has  been  declared  to  be  “the  clearest  and  most 
complete  account  of  the  Sumerian  story  of  the  Fall  of  Man.”  It 

Let  us  look  at  the  second,  namely,  the  word  gi-ush-du,  which  Chiera  trans¬ 
lates  “the  reed  which  frees  from  death,”  which  he  says  is  a  “very  good  name  for 
the  tree  of  life.”  It  is  composed  of  three  signs  or  words.  The  first  can  be  read 
gi  “reed,  land,”  etc.,  gin  “establish,  oppress.”  etc.  The  second  sign  can  be  read 
iish  “blood,  death,”  etc.,  til  “live,  complete,”  etc.,  bad  “remove,  open,”  as  well 
as  many  other  values.  The  third  sign  of  this  group  can  be  read  dii  “break,  cook, 
open,”  etc.,  gab  “cut  through,”  tukh  “open,”  etc.  All  three  signs  or  words  have 
many  values  and  meanings,  leaving  it  absolutely  impossible  to  know  what  the 
group  does  mean  until  it  is  found  in  an  explanatory  list,  or  in  an  inscription  where 
the  reading  becomes  clear  from  the  context. 


IV.  ADAM,  THE  GARDEN  OF  EDEN,  AND  THE  FALL.  115 


is  from  this  ^^myth”  and  the  Bibhcal  account,  we  are  told,  that  we 
gather  the  idea  that  the  god  never  intended  man  to  be  immortal.’’ 

It  is  not  impossible  that  parallels  of  the  Biblical  story  of  Eden 
and  the  Fall  of  Man  will  be  found,  for  if  the  Amorites  brought 
other  legends  to  Babylonia,  it  is  reasonable  to  suppose  that  they 
may  have  also  brought  these.  It  seems  to  me,  however,  that  the 
search  will  have  to  be  continued  among  the  Babylonian  and  Sumerian  \ 
legends,  not  only  for  the  origin  of  these  stories,  but  even  for  parallels.^ 

In  the  light  of  the  excavations  conducted  in  Babylonia,  and  our 
present  knowledge  of  its  physical  geography,  it  is  absolutely  clear 
that  civilization  could  not  have  had  its  origin  in  the  lower  Tigro- 
Euphrates  valley  or  delta.  We  know  that  it  required  engineering 
works  on  a  very  large  scale  before  it  was  possible  to  make  the 
country  habitable;^®  and  this  involved  extensive  cooperation  and 
a  willingness  on  the  part  of  many  people  to  be  amenable  to  regula¬ 
tions.  Great  embankments  had  to  be  constructed,  to  keep  the 
rivers  within  reasonable  channels  in  flood  season;  and  great  basins 
had  to  be  provided,  to  retain  water  so  that  when  the  floods  receded, 
it  could  be  used  for  irrigation  purposes.  Prior  to  his  entrance  into 
the  alluvium,  man  lived  further  up  the  rivers,  where  apparently 
his  engineering  science  had  developed.  Eridu  by  the  sea,  it  seems, 
was  the  first  permanent  habitation,  because  it  was  possible  for  man 
to  live  there  with  the  least  amount  of  effort  owing  to  the  fact  that 
the  inundating  waters  could  readily  escape  into  the  gulf. 

Above  Hit,  where  the  alluvium  begins,  there  are  natural  agri¬ 
cultural  districts  close  to  the  rivers,  extending  over  a  wide  area. 
Sir  William  Willcocks  was  so  very  much  impressed  with  the 
agricultural  possibilities  of  this  part  of  Western  Asia,  that  he  has 
proposed  to  locate  the  Garden  of  Eden  in  this  region.  Five  or  six 
thousand  years  ago,  he  tells  us,  before  ^‘ihe  degradation  of  the 

See  Sayce,  Archaeology  of  the  Cuneiform  Inscriptions  p.  76;  Willcocks,  The 
Near  East,  September  29,  1916,  p.  521;  Clay,  Jour.  Amer.  Or.  Soc.  41,  261  ff.  etc. 


116 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


cataracts/’  there  was  a  free  flow  of  water  in  this  district  for  irriga¬ 
tion  purposes. 

It  appears  to  me  that  the  theory  of  Willcocks,  who  is  so  well 
acquainted  with  this  part  of  the  Near  East,  having  studied  it 
topographically  and  otherwise  as  an  engineer,  is  very  important 
in  this  connection,  in  showing,  at  least,  that  this  country  was 
probably  occupied  earlier  than  the  alluvial  plain.  It  was  in  this 
part  of  Amurru  that  the  very  ancient  kingdom  Mari  existed,  which 
had  not  only  ruled  Babylonia  in  the  fourth  millennium  B.  C.,  but 
furnished  that  land  with  its  gods.  Here  was  found  the  kingdom 
'Ana,  also  written  Khana,  which  furnished  Babylonia  with  its  god 
Ana,  and  Palestine  and  Egypt  with  his  consort  Anat.  It  was  from 
this  land  that  the  Semite  moved  into  the  alluvium  when  it  was 
ready  to  receive  man. 

We  are  informed  by  Egyptian  archaeologists  that  the  alluvium 
of  the  Nile  valley  was  formed  only  about  six  to  eight  thousand 
B.  C.,  and  that  prior  to  this  time,  prehistoric  man  lived  in  the 
terraces  along  the  river.  From  the  light  thrown  upon  the  subject 
by  excavations,  this  probably  is  about  the  time  the  alluvial  plain 
of  Babylonia  was  first  occupied.  It  would  be  difficult  to  under¬ 
stand,  therefore,  how  any  intelligent  resident  of  Western  Asia 
could  accept  the  idea  that  man  first  lived  in  this  alluvium.  With 
the  evidence  everywhere  in  sight  of  his  colossal  doings,  in  his  efforts 
to  harness  the  two  rivers,  it  is  inconceivable  that  the  ancient  could 
satisfy  himself  that  this  had  been  Paradise,  and  that  primaeval 
man  lived  there.  It  is  difficult  to  conceive  how  even  an  intelligent 
Babylonian  could  have  come  to  such  a  belief.  Moreover,  the  de¬ 
scription  of  Eden  in  Genesis  precludes  the  possibility  of  its  being 
in  the  alluvial  plain;  as  does  also  the  description  by  the  prophets 
Ezekiel  and  Amos.^^  Certainly  the  Amorites  or  Hebrews  never 
thought  of  placing  the  Garden  of  Eden  in  'Hhe  plain  of  Shinar.” 

From  the  Garden  of  Eden  to  the  Crossing  of  the  Jordan  3  ff. 

See  Ezekiel  27:23;  28:13;  and  Amos  1 : 5. 


V 

THE  HEBREW  SABBATH 


For  years  it  was  held  that  the  Hebrew  Sabbath  was  borrowed 
from  Babylonia:  that  it  had  its  roots  in  the  Babylonian  shapattu, 
or  shahattUj^  to  which  we  have  been  told  we  owe  the  blessings  of 
that  day;  for  ^Hhe  Sabbath-rest  was  essentially  of  Babylonian 
origin. ’’2  jg  j^eld  that  ^Hhe  word  Sabbath  is  Babylonian 

indeed. ’’3 

This  view  has  been  accepted  by  many  scholars.  It  is  only 
necessary  to  examine  the  Biblical  dictionaries,  commentaries,  and 
other  helps,  to  ascertain  how  deeply  rooted  this  idea  is  at  the 
present  time.  Let  us  here  inquire  upon  what  basis  does  the  asser¬ 
tion  rest  that  the  Hebrew  Sabbath  is  of  Babylonian  origin. 

In  the  first  place  there  was  found  in  a  Babylonian  dictionary, 
or  explanatory  list  of  rare  words,  this  formula:  um  nukh  libhi  = 
sha-pat-tum  (or  sha-hat-tum)  This  was  translated  ^^shabattu 
was  the  day  of  rest  of  the  heart,’^  literally  “a  day  of  rest.^^  The 
word  shahatu  was  also  found  in  an  explanatory  list  of  rare  words, 
but  the  meaning  given  for  it,  namely,  gamdru  ^Ho  be  full,  com¬ 
plete’’^  did  not  seem  at  the  time  to  be  suitable  for  the  assertions 
that  had  been  made. 

The  word  shahattu,  for  which  there  is  no  etymology  in  Semitic 
Babylonian,  was  said  to  have  been  derived  by  the  native  lexi¬ 
cographers  from  the  Sumerian  sa  heart,”  and  hat  cease”  or 
^  ^  rest  ” ;  ®  it  was  literally  translated  ‘  ‘  heart  rest .  ” 

^  Delitzsch,  Babel  and  Bible  p.  101. 

2  Sayce,  Religion  of  Egypt  and  Babylonia  p.  476. 

3  Rogers,  Religion  of  Babylonia  and  Assyria  p.  226. 

*  Cuneiform  Texts  12,  6:24. 

®  See  Zeitschrift  fur  Assyriologie  4,  272. 

*  Sayce,  Religion  of  the  Babylonians  p.  272. 

(117) 


118 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


The  second  discovery  upon  which  the  theory  is  based,  is  an 
inscription  giving  a  calendar  of  the  festivals  of  the  intercalary 
month  Second  Elul,  in  which  the  duties  of  the  shepherd,  or  king,  are 
prescribed  for  the  7th,  14th,  21st,  and  28th,  as  well  as  the  19th  days 
of  the  month.  It  reads:  ^ ‘The  seventh  day  is  the  feast  of  Marduk 
and  Zarpanit.  It  is  an  evil  day.  The  shepherd  of  great  peoples 
shall  not  eat  flesh  cooked  over  coals  of  an  oven;  he  shall  not  change 
the  garments  of  his  body;  he  shall  not  put  on  clean  clothes;  a 
sacrifice  he  shall  not  offer;  the  king  shall  not  ride  in  his  chariot; 
he  shall  not  speak  as  a  king;  the  diviner  shall  not  give  a  decision 
in  the  secret  place;  the  physician  shall  not  touch  a  sick  man;  it 
is  not  suitable  to  pronounce  a  curse;  at  night  the  king  shall  bring 
his  offerings  before  Marduk  and  Ishtar;  he  shall  offer  a  sacrifice; 
the  lifting  up  of  his  hands  is  pleasing  to  the  god.^^^ 

Whether  these  requirements  were  to  be  observed  only  during 
the  Second  Elul,  the  extra  month  inserted  in  the  calendar  every 
two  or  three  years,  cannot  be  determined.  Although  the  tablet 
was  found  in  the  Nineveh  Library,  it  doubtless  refers  to  observance 
by  the  king  at  Babylon,  as  shown  by  the  names  of  the  deities. 
These  days  have  been  regarded  as  the  origin  of  the  Hebrew 
Sabbath. 

Although  the  words  shapattu,  and  shahatUj  are  not  used  in  con¬ 
nection  with  these  days,  it  was  assumed  that  they  were  thus  called; 
and  although  in  the  hemerology  they  were  designated  as  “evil 
days,’’  nevertheless  scholars  decided  arbitrarily  that  the  words 
um  nukh  lihhiy  found  in  the  syllabary,  referred  to  them.  For  years 
Babylonists  based  their  assertions  that  the  Sabbath  was  a  Baby¬ 
lonian  institution  on  these  two  points. 

Somewhat  later  it  was  shown  that  the  expression  nukh  lihhi, 
which  occurs  frequently  in  the  lamentation  hymns,  did  not  mean 
“rest  of  the  heart,”  but  referred  to  the  pacification  of  the  gods; 

’  Cuneiform  Inscriptions  of  Western  Asia  IV,  32:28ff. 


V.  THE  HEBKEW  SABBATH. 


119 


and  the  expression  was  then  translated  ^^day  of  the  appeasement 
of  the  heart.’’ 

In  1904,  Doctor  Pinches  discovered  in  a  tablet  giving  the  desig¬ 
nation  of  the  days  of  the  month,  that  the  15th  day  was  called 
shapatti^  when  it  became  clear  that  the  word  shahatu,  explained 
by  gamdruy  meaning  be  complete,  full,”  apparently  referred 
to  the  full  moon  in  the  middle  of  the  month. ^ 

This  new  light  upon  the  subject  required  a  readjustment  of  the 
proof  that  has  been  advanced  for  the  Babylonian  origin  of  the 
Sabbath.  However,  this  was  promptly  accomplished,  and  the 
same  conclusion  reached,  even  ^That  the  word  Sabbath  is  Baby¬ 
lonian  indeed.” 

In  this  contention  I  cannot  acquiesce.  There  is  no  root  in  Baby¬ 
lonian,  as  already  intimated,  equivalent  to  the  common  Hebrew 
shdbat  ^To  cut  off,  desist,  put  an  end  to.”  With  the  knowledge 
of  its  extended  usage  throughout  the  Old  Testament,  and  knowing 
how  thoroughly  the  institutions  and  the  life  of  Israel  were  bound 
up  with  this  day,  to  me  it  has  been  inconceivable  how  Assyriologists 
could  make  themselves  believe,  on  the  basis  of  the  data  given  above, 
that  this  institution  and  this  word  were  borrowed  from  Baby¬ 
lonia. 

As  the  calendar  for  the  intercalary  month  Elul  contained  certain 
requirements  of  the  king  on  the  7th,  etc.,  days  of  the  month,  but 
not  of  the  common  people,  an  investigation  was  made  by  the  late 
Professor  Johns  to  ascertain  what  the  dating  of  the  many  contracts 
would  show  as  regards  the  observance  of  these  days. 

It  was  found  that  on  the  days  in  question,  business  was  carried 
on  as  usual,  although  the  19th  day  showed  a  considerable  falling 

®  Proc.  Soc.  Bihl.  Arch.  26,  51  ff.  Most  of  the  days  are  simply  numbered.  Be¬ 
sides  the  15th  day,  the  21st  is  called  ihhu  “  anger the  25th  arkhu  TIL,  perhaps 
meaning  “end  of  month’’;  see  Jastrow  Rel.  Bah.  und  Assyr.  II,  510  f. 

•  See  also  Zimmern,  ZDMG  58,  199  £f  and  458  ff . 


120 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


off,  and  in  the  time  of  the  First  Dynasty  of  Babylon  and  in  the 
seventh  century  of  the  Assyrian  period,  there  was  also  observed 
a  decrease  in  the  number  of  business  transactions  dated  on  these 
days,  which,  however,  perhaps  can  now  be  explained  (see  below). 
This  falling  off  of  business  did  not  show  itself  in  the  tablets  of  the 
Cassite  period.  The  temple  documents  of  that  era  showed  the 
same  average  of  business  transacted  on  these  days,  as  well  as  on 
the  19th  of  the  month. 

An  examination  of  the  business  archives  of  the  Murashff  Sons 
of  Nippur,  dated  in  the  reigns  of  Artaxerxes  I  and  Darius  II,  that 
is  in  the  time  of  Ezra,  also  do  not  show  any  abstention  from 
business  on  these  days;  they  do,  however,  show  that  on  them  the 
Jews,  who  figured  so  prominently  in  these  documents,  are  con¬ 
spicuous  for  their  absence  as  contracting  parties.  Probably  a 
reinvestigation  of  the  documents  of  the  First  Dynasty,  and  of  the 
Assyrian  period,  will  reveal  a  similar  West  Semitic  influence  on 
these  days,  especially  as  in  both  these  periods  Babylonia  and 
Assyria  were  well  filled  with  Amorites.  Another  fact  has  recently 
come  to  light  which  has  an  interesting  bearing  in  this  connection. 

The  nearest  approach  to  anything  resembling  the  actual  observ¬ 
ance  of  a  day  like  the  Hebrew  Sabbath  in  Babylonia,  is  to  be  found 
in  a  series  of  twenty-three  tablets  in  the  Yale  Babylonian  Collec¬ 
tion,  which  belonged  to  the  temple  archives  discovered  at  Warka, 
the  ancient  city  of  Erech.  They  are  monthly  records  of  sheep 
delivered  for  sacrificial  and  other  purposes.  These  tablets  are 
dated  between  the  fifth  year  of  Cjrrus  (534  B.  C.),  and  the  sixth  of 
Cambyses  (523  B.  C.).  The  number  of  sheep  that  were  delivered 
is  specified  for  each  day  of  the  month;  for  example,  five  or  more 
sheep  were  set  apart  for  the  stable,’’  and  four  or  more  for  the 

shepherd  of  sacrifice,”  probably  referring  to  the  stable  of  the 


10  Johns,  Expository  Times  XVII  567. 


V.  THE  HEBREW  SABBATH. 


121 


royal  or  official  household,  and  the  shepherd  in  charge  of  the  temple 
sacrificial  animals. 

These  entries  are  made  for  each  day  of  the  month;  but  following 
the  entry  for  the  7th,  14th,  21st,  and  28th  days,  there  is  written 
in  some  of  the  records  an  additional  item,  namely,  ^^one  khitpi,’^ 
which  word  apparently  means  offering ^nd  in  the  others  the 
words  ^^one  kid  for  an  offering.^’  There  is,  however,  a  variation 
in  the  days.  Nine  of  the  records  have  the  same  succession  of  seven 
days,  but  on  the  rest  of  the  tablets  the  previous  day  is  occasionally 
mentioned,  as  the  6th,  13th,  20th,  and  27th;  and  in  one  instance 
the  26th  day.  This  would  simply  show  that  the  kid  for  the  offering 
was  in  some  instances  delivered  on  the  day  previous  to  the  one 
appointed. 

These  tablets  show  the  first  actual  observance  of  anything  in 
Babylonia  that  suggests  the  existence  of  a  parallel  to  the  Sabbath. 
Moreover,  it  very  probably  is  more  than  a  parallel;  we  may  have 
here  proof  of  the  observance  of  the  Hebrew  Sabbath  in  Babylonia; 
but  by  whom? 

We  know  that  Nebuchadnezzar  carried  Judah  into  captivity. 
We  find  that  the  nomenclature  in  Babylonia,  following  this  event, 
contains  many  Hebrew  names.  The  Murashff  archives,  a  century 
later,  are  full  of  them.^^  And  we  know  also  with  what  considera¬ 
tion  Cyrus  treated  the  foreign  peoples  of  the  land  from  the  very 
beginning  of  his  reign.  In  these  tablets  we  find  that  from  the 
fifth  year  of  Cyrus,  the  keeper  of  the  city’s  live  stock  at  Erech, 
in  addition  to  the  five  and  occasionally  more  sheep,  which  he 
daily  delivered  to  the  official  stable,  and  four  and  occasionally 

Clay,  Miscellaneous  Inscriptions  75  ff. 

The  only  occurrence  of  this  word  known  to  the  writer  is  on  an  Aramaic  inscrip¬ 
tion  found  in  the  Serapaeum  at  Memphis;  for  which  the  translation  “offerings’^ 
has  been  offered;  cf.  ibidem  p.  77. 

”  Clay,  Business  Documents  of  the  Mur  ash'd  Sons  of  Nippur, 


122 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


more  to  the  shepherd  of  the  sacrificial  animals,  gave  a  kid  for  an 
offering,’^  on  the  7th,  14th,  21st,  and  28th  days. 

While  it  is  not  specified  who  received  these  four  kids  each  month, 
knowing  that  thousands  of  Hebrews  were  in  the  land,  it  seems 
reasonable  to  conjecture  that  they  were  given  to  Hebrew  menials 
who  were  in  the  employ  of  the  court  or  temple,  so  that  they  could 
keep  their  feast  in  accordance  with  their  religion. 

There  have  already  been  published  hundreds  of  h3mins  from 
Babylonia,  and  hundreds  of  ritual  texts.  The  mass  of  this  kind 
of  literature  is  ten  times  greater  than  that  found  in  the  Old  Testa¬ 
ment.  We  have  also  a  large  body  of  laws  from  the  early  and  late 
periods.  In  these,  as  well  as  in  the  mass  of  other  texts,  besides 
what  is  referred  to  above,  there  is  not  a  semblance  of  an  idea  cor¬ 
responding  to  the  Hebrew  Sabbath,  nor  any  reference  to  the 
word  (r.  e.,  shahhat,  not  shapattu  or  shahattu). 

Whether  in  view  of  the  fact  that  the  ^^new  moon’^  and  the 
Sabbath  in  the  Old  Testament,  stand  in  juxtaposition  in  so  many 
passages  the  Sabbath  was  originally  the  day  of  the  ^Tull  moon,^’ 
i.  e.j  the  fifteenth  day  of  the  month,  need  not  concern  us  here.^'* 
Suffice  it  to  say  that  besides  the  requirements  for  the  king,  specified 
in  the  calendar  for  the  periods  of  seven  days,  including  the  19th  of 
the  intercalary  Second  Elul,  which  are  simply  designated  as  ^^evil 
days,^^  there  are  no  data  to  show  that  the  general  activities  of  life 
in  Babylonia  were  interrupted  on  what  corresponds  to  the  Hebrew 
Sabbath,  not  even  on  the  fifteenth  day  of  the  month,  which  was 
designated  as  shapattu;  that  there  is  no  etymological  evidence  to 
show  that  the  root  shahat,  corresponding  to  the  Hebrew,  was  in 
use  in  Babylonia;  and  that  besides  the  occurence  of  the  word 
shapattu  in  lists,  or  dictionaries  of  rare  words,  it  is  not  found  in  the 
literature  of  the  Babylonians  except  in  the  Amorite  Enuma  elish 

On  this  question  see  Jastrow,  Amer.  Jour.  Sem.  Lang.  30,  94  ff . 


V.  THE  HEBREW  SABBATH. 


123 


(V:  18).  Moreover  it  is  highly  probable  that  shapattu  is  a 
reflection  of  the  Hebrew  shahhath.^^ 

In  view  of  all  this,  and  also  of  the  conclusion  that  the  current  of 
religious  ideas  flowed  not  in  the  direction  of  S3a*ia  and  Palestine, 
as  shown  above  in  the  second  chapter,  will  scholars  continue  to 
promulgate  the  idea  that  the  Hebrew  Sabbath  is  of  Babylonian 
origin?  We  have  a  right  to  expect  more  than  this.  Do  not  the 
scholars  who  have  promulgated  these  ideas,  if  they  have  become 
convinced  that  their  published  views  are  wrong,  have  a  responsi¬ 
bility  to  the  Bible  student  in  letting  this  fact  become  known? 

i®This  is  the  view  also  of  Professor  Torrey,  who  says  that  the  Babylonian 
shabattu  was  borrowed  from  the  West-Semi  tic  shab'at  meaning  “seven’ ^ 
{AJSL  33,  53.) 


VI 

THE  ANTEDILUVIAN  PATRIARCHS 


Many  Assyriologists  hold  the  view  that  the  names  of  the  ante¬ 
diluvian  patriarchs  of  Genesis  are  translations  of,  or  that  they  were 
otherwise  made  to  be  equivalents  of,  Babylonian  names,  in  some 
instances  of  antediluvian  kings,  and  in  others,  of  kings  from  post¬ 
diluvian  dynastic  lists.  It  matters  not  whether  those  selected  for 
the  purpose  belong  to  kings  or  sages.  Some  of  the  names  used  to 
show  the  origin  of  the  early  patriarchs  are  taken  from  Senoitic, 
and  others  from  Sumerian,  lists,  while  several  are  deliberately 
changed  to  make  them  conform  to  those  with  which  it  is  desired 
to  identify  them.  The  possibihty  that  the  ancestors  of  the  Hebrews 
had  their  own  traditional  lists,  is  by  them  not  even  taken  into 
consideration.  It  is  in  this  way,  we  are  informed,  the  Hebrew 
writers  make  up  their  fictitious  lists  of  patriarchal  ancestors. 

A  discussion  of  personal  names  is  not  ordinarily  inviting  to  the 
average  Bible  student ;  nevertheless,  I  think  even  those  not  familiar 
with  Semitic  philology  will  not  only  be  able  to  judge  intelligently 
for  themselves  as  to  the  merits  of  Babylonism,  as  it  bears  upon  this 
subject,  but  will  also  find,  I  think,  considerable  interest  in  the 
display  of  effort  made  by  scholars  to  prove  the  Babylonian  origin 
of  the  Hebrew  antediluvians,  especially  in  studying  the  tabulated 
results  on  pages  125-7. 

There  are  four  sources  of  data  used  in  trying  to  prove  the  Baby- 
Ionian  origin  of  these  characters.  The  first  of  these  is  the  Biblical. 
As  is  well  known,  there  are  two  genealogical  traditions  or  series 
of  patriarchs  in  Genesis  between  the  creation  and  the  deluge,  one 
having  seven  names,  which  is  generally  recognized  as  belonging 
to  what  is  called  the  Jehovist  version  (J.),  and  the  other  having 

(124) 


VI.  THE  ANTEDILUVIAN  PATRIARCHS. 


125 


ten,  as  belonging  to  what  is  called  the  Priestly  version  (P.).  There 
are  also  divergences  as  to  the  order  and  the  form  in  which  some  of 
the  names  appear  (see  below). 

The  second  source  of  the  material  used  in  identifying  the  Biblical 
patriarchs  with  the  Babylonian  is  the  hst  of  antediluvian  Chaldean 
kings  w^hich  has  been  handed  down  by  Berossus,  as  preserved  in 
the  writings  of  Eusebius  and  Syncellus,  who  had  obtained  their 
data  from  writings  of  Apollodorus,  Abydenus,  and  Polyhistor.^ 
As  a  result,  the  names  said  to  have  been  copied  by  Berossus  at 
Babylon,  are  handed  down  in  variant  forms  (see  below) . 

Professor  Langdon  of  Oxford  has  recently  published  the  third 
source,  namely,  a  tablet  of  the  Ashmolean  Museum  consisting  of 
eighteen  lines,  some  of  which  are  unfortunately  fragmentary.^ 
This  also  gives  ten  kings  who  ruled  before  the  flood,  ending  with 
the  hero;  but  instead  of  the  name  Atra-khasis  (Xisuthros),  it 
gives  the  Sumerian  form  of  the  title  he  received  after  the  deluge, 
namely  Zi-fl-sud-du  ( =  Um-napishtim-ruqu)  (see  Chapter  VII). 
Unfortunately  only  three  of  the  names  or  titles  are  complete,  and 
the  reading  of  one  of  these  is  yet  to  be  explained. 

The  fourth  source  of  material  used  to  show  the  origin  of  the 
Hebrew  patriarchs  is  in  the  earj^  dynastic  list  of  kings  who  ruled 
in  Babylonia  subsequent  to  t]fie  deluge.®  These  have  furnished 

V 

additional  material  for  certain  scholars  in  their  efforts  to  prove  the 
Biblical  patriarchs  to  be  of  Babylonian  origin. 


Jehovistic 

Adam 


The  Biblical  Lists 

Priestly 

1  Adam .  130 

— 2  Seth .  105 

Seth  3  Enosh . v  . .  90 


930  years^ 
912 
905 


it 


^  See  Cory,  Ancient  Fragments,  from  which  the  variants  gi’^n  below  are  taken. 
2  Jour.  Royal  Asiatic  Society,  Apr.  1923,  251. 

2  See  Poebel,  Historical  Texts  73  ff.,  or  Clay,  Jour.  Am.  Or.  Soc.  41,  241  ff. 

*  The  first  column  gives  the  age  at  the  birth  of  the  son  whose  name  follows,  and 
the  second  column,  all  his  years. 


V 


126 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


3  Enosh  4  Kenan .  70  910  years 

4  Cain  5  Mahalal-El .  65  895 

5  Enoch  6  Yered .  162  962 

6  ’Irad  7  Enoch .  65  365 

7  Mehuja-El  8  Methush®-Elakh .  187  969 

8  Methusha-El  9  Lamech .  182  777  ** 

9  Lamech  10  Noah .  500  [950]  ** 

10  Noah  Age  at  deluge . . .  100  ** 


1656 


The  Berossus  List  of  Chaldean  Kings 


1  ^Al5ros . 

2  ’Alaparos,  Alapaurm . 

3  ’Amillaros,  ^Amelon,  Almelon . 

4  ^Ammenon . 

5  Megalaros,  Megalanos,  Amegalarus . 

6  Daonos,  Daos,  Da{v)onus  shepherd . . 

7  EuedOrakhos,  Euedoreskhos,  Edoranchus 

8  ^Amempsinos,  Amemphsinus . 

9  ^Ardatas,  ’Otiartas . 

10  Xisouthros,  Sisouthros,  Xisuthrus . 

Total . 


Years 

City 

10  sars 

Babylon 

3 

ti 

“  (?) 

13 

tt 

Pantibibk 

12 

11 

tt 

18 

ii 

tt 

10 

11 

tt 

18 

t( 

tt 

10 

11 

Larak 

8 

18 

a 

“  (?) 

120 

tt 

(432,00  years) 

The  Ashmolean  Museum  List 


1  . x-alim . 

2  ....  Idl-gdr . 

3  .  .-ki-du-un-nu-sha-kin-kin 

4  . . . .  x-x . 

5  . .  -zi-sib . 

6  .  .-en-lu-an-na . 

7  . sib-zi  an-na . 

8  En-me-4ur-an-na . 


Years 

City 

67,200® 

Khabur 

72,000 

tt 

72,000 

Larsa 

21,600 

it 

28,800 

DtiT  Tib 

21,600 

tt 

36,000 

Larak 

72,000 

Sippar 

There  is  an  additional  sar  at  the  end  of  the  line  unaccounted  for.  This  may 
be  the  determinative  kam  which  follows  numbers. 


VI.  THE  ANTEDILUVIAN  PATRIAECHS. 


127 


9  Su-kur-Lam  dumu  (“son  of”)  Uhur-Tu-Tu  . . .  28,800  Su-kur-Lam 


10  Zi-iH-sud-du  dumu  Su-kur-Lam-Gi .  26,000 

Total . 460,400  years 


Let  us  first  discuss  briefly  the  recently  published  Ashmolean 
inscription,  concerning  which  Professor  Langdon  writes  as  follows: 
^‘The  Weld-Blundell  tablet  proves  that  the  legend  of  the  ten  pre- 
diluvian  patriarchs  preserved  in  Hebrew  tradition  and  by  the 
Greek  historians  of  Babylonia  was  Sumerian.”  The  post-exilic 
writer  P.,  in  Genesis  X,  he  adds,  “clearly  borrowed  the  idea  from 
the  common  Sumerian  source.” 

Langdon  reads  the  last  sign  of  the  first  name  alim,  which  he  says 
“clearly  represents  the  original  of  the  Greek  ^AldrosJ^  But  even 
were  this  true,  what  is  to  be  said  about  the  three  or  more  signs  of 
the  name  which  precede  aZfm,  one  of  which  is  partly  preserved? 

The  second  name  he  reads  [A]-ldUgdr,  which  he  says  “may  con¬ 
ceivably  afford  an  explanation  of  the  name  Alaparos  given  by 
Berossus.  The  Greeks  corrupted  P  gamma  to  H  pe(pi).”  I  doubt 
whether  scholars  will  accept  the  equation  Alalgar  Alaparos. 

Langdon  says  that  the  sixth  name  of  the  Berossus  list,  ^‘Dadnus 
is  obviously  a  textual  corruption  for  LadnuSy  a  transcription  of 
lu-an-naJ^  One  thing  can  be  said  in  favor  of  the  identification, 
and  that  is  both  are  the  sixth  in  the  lists.  But  what  is  to  be  done 
about  the  unpreserved  first  part  of  the  name,  which  reads,  ....  en- 
lu-an-naP 

The  next  name, . sih-zi-an-na,  he  says  “was,  somehow,  cor¬ 

rupted  into  Amempsinos  in  the  text  preserved  by  Berossus,  and 
occurs  wrongly  as  the  eighth  king,  not  the  seventh.”  In  favor  of 
this  it  is  said  that  both  ruled  ten  sars  (36,000)  of  years;  but  there 

®  Since  Anna  reproduces  El,  as  already  shown,  I  would  sooner  think  that  this 
name  would  eventually  prove  to  represent  Mahalal-El. 


128 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


are  five  of  the  ten  rulers,  three  in  the  one  list  and  two  in  the  other, 
who  are  credited  as  having  ruled  ten  sars.  But  see  below. 

Concerning  the  eighth  ruler,  called  En-me’-dur-an-naj  he  says 
^^The  variant  readings’^  of  Euedoranchos,  etc.,  the  seventh  of  the 
Berossus  list,  prove  that  the  Sumerian  original  was  En-me-dur- 
an-ki”  This  identification  with  the  name  of  the  Sippar  seer  and 
king,  made  years  ago  by  Zimmern,  is  very  probably  correct.  In 
favor  of  the  identification  attention  is  called  to  the  fact  that  one 
came  from  Pantibiblos  and  the  other  from  Sippar,  which  are  thought 
to  refer  to  the  same  city  (see  further  below).  I  cannot,  however, 
follow  Langdon  in  holding  that  it  is  originally  a  Sumerian  name. 

Langdon  reads  the  signs  Su-kur-Lam  in  the  ninth  name  =  Arad 
or  Aratti;  and  the  name  At  ad-gin;  this  he  identifies  with  ^Ardatas. 
Lam  might  be  a  mistake  for  ru.  However,  even  though  his  con¬ 
jectural  readings  should  prove  correct,  Ar ad-gin  =  ^Ardatas  is  not 
very  convincing.  The  tenth  name  is,  as  stated  above,  the  title 
that  the  hero  received  after  the  deluge. 

This  tablet,  like  the  Biblical  Priestly  and  the  Berossus  lists,  gives 
ten  antediluvians,  the  last  of  whom  is  the  hero  of  the  deluge  story. 
This  list  gives  also  the  name  Uhur-Tu-Tu  as  the  grandfather  of  the 
hero,  which  is  nearly  the  same  as  Uhar-Tu-Tu,  the  father  of  the 
hero  in  the  Gilgamesh  story  of  the  deluge.  I  presume  since  the 
proof  that  the  Priestly  Biblical  writer  borrowed  his  names  from 
this  Sumerian  source  is  not  found  in  the  discussion,  Langdon  means 
that  this  statement  is  according  to  what  he  has  previously  presented 
(see  below) .  I  only  desire  to  add  here  that  the  fact  that  the  names 
are  written  in  Sumerian  does  not  imply  or  prove  that  the  kings 
were  Sumerians  (see  page  165).  Moreover,  it  seems  from  what 
follows  that  the  tradition  goes  back  to  a  Semitic  source. 

In  discussing  the  subject  of  the  Hebrew  borrowings,  let  us  first 
consider  a  statement  bearing  upon  the  patriarchs  as  a  whole. 
Professor  Langdon  says  that  the  J.  writer,  in  replacing  the  names 


VI.  THE  ANTEDILUVIAN  PATKIARCHS. 


129 


in  the  Berossus  list,  reproduced  the  spirit  of  it  as  being  connected 
with  the  arts,  which  was  wholly  misunderstood  by  the  author  of 
the  P.  list.  He  also  says  that  “the  J.  document  with  its  seven 
patriarchs  is  obviously  based  upon  the  Sumero-Babylonian  tradi¬ 
tions  of  divine  patrons  of  industries.^ It  should,  however,  be 
stated  that  the  text,  on  which  the  idea  of  these  “patrons  of  indus¬ 
tries’’  is  based,  is  rather  a  myth  concerning  the  birth  of  eight  gods 
and  goddesses  to  whom  was  given  power  over  certain  diseases  of 
the  cattle,  the  flocks,  the  mouth,  the  genital  organs,  etc.  Let  us 
also  look  at  this  statement  from  another  point  of  view. 

As  far  as  I  can  observe  from  all  the  sources  used  by  Babylonists 
to  show  where  the  Hebrew  writers  secured  their  data,  besides  all 
the  rulers  being  called  “kings,”  it  is  added  only  that  several  were 
“shepherds,”  and  in  two  instances,  the  names  of  seers  or  priests 
figure  in  these  efforts.  Furthermore,  besides  the  sons  of  Lamech, 
only  one  in  both  lists  of  the  Old  Testament  patriarchs  is  said  to  be 
a  so-called  “patron  of  the  arts,”  namely,  Cain  “the  tiller”  and 
“builder.”® 

Let  us  now  proceed  to  examine  the  contentions  concerning  the 
connections  of  the  Biblical  list  with  that  of  Berossus.  The  ten 
names  which  form  the  chief  basis  for  this  have  been  handed  down 
as  those  of  ten  antediluvian  kings  of  Babylon.  The  variant  forms 
given  in  parentheses  are  found,  as  stated,  in  the  different  Greek 
and  Latin  versions. 

1.  ’Aloros  (’AX<wpo9,  Alorus).  This  name  Professor  Hommel,® 
who  is  followed  by  Dr.  Jeremias  of  Leipzig, regards  as  having  been 

7  Sumerian  Epic  of  Paradise  52,  63,  81  f. 

®  Langdon  makes  the  Biblical  Mahalal-El  to  be  “the  patron  of  health,’^  on  the 
basis  of  his  translation  of  the  name:  “God  makes  alive,”  or  “God  is  my  enlivener.” 
Lamech  he  says  is  “a  patron  of  psalmody,”  because  he  holds  the  name  is  a  trans¬ 
cript  of  lumkha,  a  Sumerian  title  of  the  god  Ea.  I  cannot  follow  in  this.  {Ibidem 
p.  52). 

9  Hommel,  Proc,  Soc.  Bibl,  Arch.  XV  243  f. 

Jeremias,  Das  Alte  Testament  im  Lichte  des  alten  Orients  118  ff. 


130 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


corrupted  from  Aruru,  which  is  one  of  the  names  of  the  mother 
goddess,  who  is  said  to  be  a  ^‘fashioner  of  mankind. In  other 
words,  they  seem  to  think  that  this  dynastic  ruler  of  the  land, 
who  came  from  Babylon,  was  a  creating  goddess.  Following 
another  proposed  identification  of  this  name,  Hommel  more  re¬ 
cently  equated  it  with  the  Sumerian  Lal-ur,  a  part  of  the  name 
Lal-ur-alim-ma,  said  to  be  an  early  king  of  Nippur. On  Langdon^s 
recent  identification  of . alim  with  this  name,  see  above. 

Before  giving  my  own  identification  of  this  and  of  other  names 
discussed  below,  let  me  refer  again  to  the  discovery  that  the  name 
Amur{ru)  was  scratched  on  several  tablets  in  the  Aramaic  charac¬ 
ters  ^wr  (=  Awur  =  t/r,  see  page  21).  In  other  words,  AmuTy 
perhaps  only  found  in  Amoriy  meaning  ‘Hhe  Amorite”  in  the  Old 
Testament, ^^^s  here  written,  like  many  other  words,  with  w 
instead  of  m;  from  which  according  to  a  well-established  phonetic 
law,  we  have  the  formula  Amur  =  Awur  =  Ur. 

Let  me  say  for  the  benefit  of  those  not  versed  in  Semitic  philology 
that  the  phonetic  changes  involved  in  this  formula  are  well  estab- 
hshed.  Let  me  add  also  that  the  doubling  of  the  r  in  AmurrUy 
probably  marks  the  accented  long  vowel  of  Amur;  and  also  that 
the  Babylonians  used  the  same  signs  to  represent  the  vowels  o 
and  u;  in  other  words,  the  sign  Ur  can  be  read  Or;  Amur  can  be 
read  Amor. 

The  nomenclature  of  early  Babylonia  is  full  of  foreign  names 
compounded  with  that  of  the  god  Uru.^^  After  the  time  of  the 
First  dynasty  of  Babylon,  this  element  is  only  occasionally  found. 

In  Nies,  Ur  Dynasty  Tablets  p.  206. 

12  Unless  it  is  to  be  recognized  in  Moriah,  2  Chron.  3:1,  for  which  the  Septuagint 
and  the  Syriac  give  Amoriah. 

13  See  Huber,  Die  Personennamen  in  den  Keilinschrifturkvnden  aus  der  Zeit  der 
Konige  von  Ur  and  Nisin  pp.  170  and  189;  Ranke,  Personal  Names  of  the  Ham¬ 
murabi  Dynasty  208  f.;  and  the  many  editions  of  texts  published  since  these  works 
have  appeared. 


VI.  THE  ANTEDILUVIAN  PATRIAKCHS. 


131 


and  then  chiefly  in  family  names,  which  is  probably  due  to  the 
fact  that  the  city  Mari,  where  apparently  Uru  was  worshipped, 
was  destroyed.  As  Babylon  and  Ashur  later  gave  their  names  to 
the  country,  so  Uru  gave  its  name  not  only  to  its  own  land,  but 
even  to  the  upper  part  of  Babylonia  in  the  early  period,  which 
was  called  Uri. 

In  view  of  the  prevalence  of  the  god  Uru  in  the  early  nomencla¬ 
ture,  following  the  above  mentioned  discovery,  I  proposed  that 
’Aloros  was  El-Or;  which  probably  means  “El  is  Uru^^;  and  I 
identified  the  name  with  El-Or  (7  w),  in  the  hst  of  gods  found  in 
the  early  Aramaic  inscription  of  Zakir. A  little  later  in  the  same 
year,  and  independently,  another  scholar  made  the  same  identifica¬ 
tion;  it  has  since  been  accepted  by  many  scholars. 

In  other  words,  instead  of  identifying  ’Alorus,  the  first  king  or 
emperor  of  the  land,  with  the  goddess  Arum,  or  with  the  Sumerian 

Lal-Ur^  part  of  an  early  king’s  name  of  Nippur,  or  with . alim 

of  the  Ashmolean  tablet,  I  maintain  it  is  to  be  identified  with  El-Ur. 

2.  ’Alaparos  A.\aiTapo<;^  Alaporus^  Alapaurus,  Alayarus).  Not¬ 
withstanding  that  the  Greek  and  Latin  forms  of  the  second  ante¬ 
diluvian  Babylonian  king  are  practically  identical,  this  name  is 
regarded  by  many  scholars  as  incorrectly  reproducing  Adapa,  the 
name  of  the  sage  of  Eridu,  already  referred  to,  without  any  regard 
for  the  element  or  os  or  aros,  which  appears  in  all  the  forms  at  the 

Amurru  the  Home  of  the  Northern  Semites  (1909)  p.  64. 

See  Schiffer,  Or.  Lit.  Zeit.  Nov.  1909,  p.  478;  Lidzbarski,  Zeit.  fur  Ass.  31 
p.  196;  Jensen,  Or.  Lit.  Zeit.  1921,  269  f;  etc.  I  note,  however,  that  Professor 
Sayce,  in  commenting  on  this  identification,  writes:  ’I  wr,  “it  is  needless  to  say, 
has  nothing  to  do  with  Aloros  of  Berossos.”  He  then  identifies  it  with  the  god 
Wir  or  Mir.  {Proc.  Soc.  Bibl.  Arch.  1919,  p.  208).  I  accept  his  identification,  for 
it  is  the  same  as  my  own  (see  Empire  of  the  Amorites  p.  69);  but  the  name  of  this 
god  is  also  written  Wer,  Mer,  Mar,  Mari;  and  since  Mar  and  Amurru  (Cru)  are 
interchangeable  (see  ibidem  p.  68),  we  have  the  same  deity.  Cf.  the  family  name 
of  the  Cassite  period  PiS-"^ Amurru  {Kur-Gal;  Martu),  written  pr  wr  in  Aramaic, 
at  the  time  of  Ashurbanipal  (see  Lidzbarski,  ibidem). 


132 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


end  of  the  name.  This  change  is  made,  so  that  Adapa  can  be 
regarded  as  ^Hhe  first  man,^^  and  the  original  of  Adam.  This 
conclusion,  that  ’Alaparos  is  Adapa,  has  been  advanced  by  many 
Ass3rriologists:  Sayce,^®  Hommel,^^  Zimmern,^®  Jeremias,^®  Un- 
gnad,*®  Langdon,2i  and  King:^^  as  well  as  by  many  Old  Testament 
scholars. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  the  changes  proposed  in  the  equa¬ 
tion  ^Alaparos  =  Adapa  =  Adam,  leave  nothing  of  the  original 
name  except  the  first  two  vowels;  reminding  us  of  the  definition 
once  given  by  Voltaire  for  etymology,  that  it  ^Ts  a  science  in  which 
the  vowels  amount  to  nothing  and  the  consonants  very  little.^^ 
We  have  seen  above  that  the  identification  of  the  sage  Adapa 
(whose  name  is  also  written  Adapa  (d))  with  Adam,  is  impossible. 
The  same  seems  to  be  true  of  the  more  recent  formula  of  Langdon, 
namely  Alalgar  =  ^Alaparos.  Moreover,  since  the  element  or  os 
of  this  name,  also  written  aros,  is  found  in  haK  of  the  names  of  the 
list,  it  ought  to  be  needless  to  say,  it  cannot  be  ignored.  My 
reading  of  the  name  ^Alaporos  or  Alapaurus,  is  Alap-Uru.  It  is 
Amorite,  and  probably  means  Friend  of  the  god  Uru,’’  or  of 
Uru.2® 

3.  ’Amillaros,  ’Amelon  (’A/4tXXapo9,  ’AfjLrjXcov,  Almelon).  Again, 
no  account  is  taken  by  any  of  the  Babylonists  of  the  full  forms 
of  this  name,  which  end  in  aros,  and  on.  ’Amelon  is  alone  con¬ 
sidered  and  regarded  to  have  been  the  Babylonian  word  am^lu 

Sayce,  Archaeology  of  the  Cuneiform  Inscriptions  91. 

Hommel,  Ibidem. 

18  Zimmern,  Kdlinschriften  und  das  Alte  Testament^  p.  538. 

!•  Jeremias,  Ibidem. 

2*  Ungnad,  in  Gressmann,  AUorientalische  Texte  und  Bilder  p.  39. 

21  Langdon,  Ibidem.  In  the  light  of  his  recent  find,  Langdon  abandons  this,  but 
see  above. 

22  King,  Schweich  Lectures  1916,  p.  32  f. 

2*Cf.  the  Babylonian  Agal-Marduk  “Calf  of  Marduk;”  Immer-Ili  “Lamb  of 
El,”  etc. 


VI.  THE  ANTEDILUVIAN  PATEIARCHS. 


133 


This,  they  say,  the  Hebrew  writers  reproduced  by  Enosh 
^‘man.’^  (Thus  Hommel,  Sayce,  Zinunern,  Jeremias,  Ungnad,  and 
King.)  Barton  reaches  the  same  results  in  a  different  way.  He 
proposes  that  the  Sumerian  Enmenunna,  the  fourteenth  king  of 
Kish,  which  he  translates  ^‘Exalted  man,^^  if  reproduced  in  Baby¬ 
lonian  by  one  word,  would  become  amelu  “man’^;  and  this,  if 
transferred  into  Hebrew,  would  give  Enosh}^  But  En-me-nunnaj 
if  Sumerian,  is  a  title  meaning  ^Hhe  exalted  lord  of  the  oracle.^’ 
Assuming  that  the  Hebrew  scribes  were  intelligent  men,  we  are 
prompted  to  inquire,  why,  if  they  desired  to  reproduce  amelu 
^^man’’  in  Hebrew,  they  did  not  use  the  element  mUh  ^^man”  which 
is  found  in  two  of  the  Biblical  names,  or  tsh  ^^man,’'  also  found  as  a 
Hebrew  name  element,  instead  of  making  it  Enosh,  which  really 
means  mankind,’^  and  which  is  only  found  in  this  name.  It  does 
not  seem  that  the  meaning  “  mankind  for  this  personal  name,  is 
correct,  and  especially  in  view  of  the  common  element  enshu  in 
Babylonian  names.  However,  I  feel  that  my  own  identification  of 
the  name  Amillaros  with  Amel-Uru,  which  accounts  for  both 
elements  instead  of  only  one,  needs  no  comment;  and  that  it  is 
beyond  cavil.  And  I  propose  that  the  variant  name  ^Amelon  is 
AmU-Anu.  Attention  has  already  been  called  to  the  fact  that  the 
name  Anna  or  Anu  is  found  in  other  names  of  Chaldeans  mentioned 
in  Berossus’  story,  namely  Annadotos,  Anamentos,  and  ’Anoda- 
phos.2®  On  the  fact  that  we  have  these  variant  readings,  etc.,  see 
below. 

4.  ’Ammenon  {^AfjbfjLevcov,  Ammenon).  This  is  generally  regarded 
the  same  as  the  Babylonian  word  ummanuj  artisan,’^  which  it  is 
declared  was  reproduced  in  Hebrew,  and  became  Cain  and  Kenan 

Smith.’’  (Thus  Hommel,  Sayce,  Zimmern,  Jeremias,  and  Lang- 
don.)  Barton  has  proposed  that  the  Hebrew  Cain  is  from  the 

2^  Barton,  Archaeology  and  the  Bible  p.  267. 

26  Empire  of  the  Amorites  p.  168. 


134 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


Sumerian  Pilikam,  which  is  his  reading  of  a  postdiluvian  name  of 
the  thirteenth  king  of  the  Kish  dynasty,  which  he  translates  ^^with 
intelligence  to  build and  this,  he  says,  if  rendered  as  one  word 
in  Babylonian,  could  become  ummanu  artificer,’^  which  if  repro¬ 
duced  in  Hebrew,  would  become  Cain.  King  says  the  n  in  the 
Sumerian  En-me-nunnay  the  king  of  Kish,  above  mentioned,  was 
assimilated;  and  then  he  identifies  it  with  ^Ammenon. 

In  the  more  or  less  ten  thousand  Babylonian  personal  names 
now  known,  the  supposed  Ummanu  is  unknown.  And  if  ummanu 

artisan’^  were  the  name  in  question,  why  did  not  the  Hebrew 
scribes,  if  the  Babylonists  are  right,  use  the  corresponding  Hebrew 
word  ^ommaUj  artificer,^ or  the  very  common  khdrdsh  or  khoresh, 
or  even  'ammdly  artificer,”  to  represent  the  word,  instead  of 
using  Cain  or  Kenan,  which  is  not  found  in  Hebrew  with  that 
meaning;  although  to  be  sure  there  is  an  Aramaic  word  kainaya^"^ 
and  Arabic  kainu  meaning  smith.”  And  we  should  also  ask,  if 
the  J.  writer  reproduced  ummanu  artisan,”  by  the  name  Cain, 
why  did  he  frame  the  mother’s  expressed  joy,  at  his  birth,  so  as  to 
explain  etymologically  the  name  of  the  child  as  if  it  was  from  the 
root  qanah  ^Ho  beget”  (Genesis  4:1)?  Again,  let  us  note  that 
although  there  are  men  bearing  the  name  Smith”  at  the  present 
time  who  are  farmers  and  carpenters,  we  would  hardly  expect  to 
find  this  same  J.  writer  representing  the  first  “Smith”  who  ever 
lived  as  a  “tiller  of  the  ground,”  and  as  a  “builder”  (see  Genesis 
4:2,  17).  It  must  be  conceded  that  if  the  Babylonists  are  right, 
the  J.  writer  has  certainly  produced  a  strange  mixture  of  ideas  in 
what  he  is  supposed  to  have  written  about  Cain.  I  propose  that 
’Ammendn  is  ^Ammen-Anu  (probably  Ammi-Anu).  It  is  to  be 
noted  that  the  Hebrew  Amindn  is  somewhat  similar. 

2®  Torrey  has  suggested  that  ummanu  and  ^omman  are  borrowings  from  the 
Aramaic  {AJSL  33,  53). 

27  It  is  used  in  this  sense  in  the  0.  T.  Targumim,  see  Kohut,  Arukhy  VII,  89a; 
see  also  Jastrow  Talmudic  Die.  p.  1363. 


VI.  THE  ANTEDILUVIAN  PATRIARCHS. 


135 


5.  Megalaros  (MeyaXapo?,  MeyaXapo?,  Amegalarus).  This  is 
considered  to  be  a  corruption  of  a  supposed  Amelalarus,  or 
Megalalos,  which  was  reproduced  in  the  Hebrew  Mahalal-el^^  (thus 
Honunel  and  Sayce) .  Barton  thinks  that  this  name  may  go  back 
to  the  Sumerian  Enmeirgan  or  Meskingashir,  who  were  also  kings  of 
Kish. 

The  first  element  of  the  name  megal  may  mean  offshoot,  branch ;  ” 
compare  the  Hebrew  maqqel?^  Elements  with  similar  meanings 
are  common.  Megalaros  is  very  probably  Amorite,  meaning  Off- 
shot  of  Uru.^’  Here  also  we  have  a  variant  name,  Megalanos, 
which  it  seems  to  me  is  to  be  read  Megal-Anu. 

6.  Daonos,  Daos  (Aawi'o?,  Aao)?,  Da{v)onuSj  ^Hhe  shepherd^’). 
Hommel,  Sayce  and  Jeremias  regard  this  as  equivalent  to  the 
Biblical  Jared.  Langdon  previously  assumed  a  confusion  of  letters 
and  made  Daos  =  Re^u.  His  later  view,  as  given  above,  makes 

. lu-an-na  =  Laonus  =  Daonus.  King  transposed  the  initial 

vowel  and  offered  the  equation:  Daonos,  ^Hhe  shepherd’^  =  Etana, 
^Hhe  shepherd.’’  Etana  was  another  king  of  the  postdiluvian  Kish 
dynasty.  I  do  not  think  the  above  efforts  need  any  comment. 

It  seems  to  me,  in  view  of  the  above  names  with  Anu,  that  Daonos, 
and  especially  Da{v)onus,  might  well  be  Dan- Anu.  Dan  as  an 
element  in  names  is  very  common;  compare  Dan-ili  (or  El). 

7.  Euedorakhos,  Euedoreskhos  (EueScopa^o?,  EueSwpecrK09,  Edo- 
ranchus,  Edoreschus) .  This  name  has  been  regarded  as  identical 
with  the  mythological  sage,  En-me-dur-an-ki,  king  of  Sippar,  by 
Zimmern,  Hommel,  Sayce,  Jeremias,  Ungnad,  Langdon,  and  King. 
This  king  is  generally  regarded  as  the  original  of  the  Biblical  Enoch 
(see  infra).  The  identification  with  something  hke  En-me-dur- 
an-ki  seems  reasonable,  especially  in  view  of  the  eighth  name  of 

28  It  seems  that  Mahalal-El  may  be  represented  by  Megalaros,  and  probably 
also . -en-lii-An-na. 

29 1  am  indebted  to  Professor  Torrey  for  this  suggested  comparison. 


136 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


the  Ashmolean  tablet,  En-me-dur-an-na.  Zimraern,  who  originally 
made  the  identification,  said  that  the  name  Enmeduranki  was  pro¬ 
nounced  Evvedoranki.^^  Evved,  or  Eved  of  course,  suggests  the 
Hebrew  'Ehhedj  so  commonly  found  in  names.  All  the  other  names 
in  the  Berossus  list  are  very  probably  Semitic,  and  it  seems  that 
this  is  the  same.  The  Greek  digamma  having  been  lost  at  this  time, 
I  have,  therefore,  proposed  that  Eued  represents  the  Hebrew  "Eved 
servant^’;  and  that  the  name  be  tentatively  read,  "Eved-Or  akh 
(see  infra), 

8.  ’Amempsinos  AfjiefjLxpLvos,  Amemphsinus) .  This  name  has 
been  generally  regarded  to  be  a  corruption  of  Am^l-Sin.  Hommel 
and  Sayce  translate  it  into  Mutu-sha-Arkhi,  ^^man  of  the  moon- 


god,^^  or  into  Metu-sa-el,  ^^man  of  the  God.’^^^  The  identification 

with  Amel-Sin  seems  possible;  but  not  .  sih-zi-an-na,  in 

the  Ashmolean  tablet. seems  to  me  sih  following  the  fifth 

name  of  the  Ashmolean  tablet,  namely,  . -zi-sib  is  probably 

not  to  be  read  shepherd,’’  but  is  part  of  the  name,  and  that  in 


some  way  it  may  represent  the  name  ’Amempsinos.  Moreover,  I 
cannot  follow  the  efforts  made  to  find  it  reproduced  in  the  Biblical 
list  of  patriarchs. 

9.  ’Ardatas,  ’Otiartas  {^ApSaTrj^j  ’ilTLapTri^^  Otiartes),  Most 
of  the  scholars  have  proposed  to  change  the  name  Otiartes  to 
Opartes,  in  order  to  make  it  equivalent  to  Ubar-Tu-Tuy  who  is 
called  the  father  of  Atra-khasis  in  the  Gilgamesh  story  of  the 
deluge,  and  where  he  is  said  to  be  from  the  city  Shuruppak.  Since 
the  reading  of  the  ideogram  Tu-Tu,  in  the  above  name,  is  not  known, 
and  for  other  reasons,  I  prefer  to  hold  this  identification  in  abey¬ 
ance.  Alexander  Polyhistor,  who  has  given  us  the  best  reproduc¬ 
tion  of  the  Berossus  deluge  story,  hands  the  ninth  name  down  as 

30  SeeKAT^  p.  532. 

31  Sayce,  Proc.  Soc.  Bibl.  Arch.  1915  p.  10. 

32  See  Langdon,  Jour.  Royal  As.  Soc.,  1923,  251. 


VI.  THE  ANTEDILUVIAN  PATEIABCHS. 


137 


^Ardatas.  Langdon^s  recent  identification  of  ^Ardatas  with  the 
conjectural  reading  Arad-gin  {Aradda  or  Araddagin),  I  cannot 
follow.  ^Ardatas  reproduces  perfectly  the  name  of  a  city  Ardata, 
situated  along  the  coast  of  the  Mediterranean.  This  name  in  the 
Amarna  letters,  is  written  Ar-da-ta,  Ar-da-at,  and  once  El-da~ta, 
showing  that  At  very  probably  represents  the  name  of  a  deity. 
Since  the  well-known  name  Arwad,  in  the  Amarna  letters,  is  written 
Ur{Uru)-wada  (104:42),  and  also  Ar-wada  (101 : 13,  etc.),  as  well  as 
for  other  reasons,  Ar,  perhaps,  originally  W,  seems  to  be  a  pro¬ 
nunciation  of  the  deity ^s  name,  Ur.  We  need  only  recall  here  that 
the  ancient  Babylonian  scribe  has  given  us  the  reading  Ari  as  an 
equivalent  to  Amurri  (or  Uri),  Moreover,  it  seems  reasonable  to 
propose  that  the  name  ’Ardates  in  Berossus’  list,  is  a  personal  name 
identical  with  the  name  of  the  city  Ar-data.  The  element  data  in 
personal  names  of  the  early  period,  is  also  known.^^a  jg  even 
found  in  the  name  of  Annadotos,  mentioned  by  Berossus  as  hving 
in  the  same  era. 

10.  Xisuthros  (BicrovOpoSj  'Ztorovdpo^s,  Sicridpo^^  Xisuthrus). 
This  name  is  generally  regarded  as  transposing  the  elements  of  the 
name  Atra-khasis,  i.  e.,  Khasis-Atra,  the  deluge  hero,  which  is  also 
Amorite  (see  Chapter  VI). 

Other  proposed  identifications  of  the  names  of  the  Biblical 
antediluvian  patriarchs  are:  Trad  is  surely  a  Sumerian  or  Baby¬ 
lonian  word  for  some  craft,  which  J.  distorted  into  Yared  descent 
(Langdon).  Jared,  meaning  ^‘descendant,’’  may  be  from  Dumuzi 
[Tammuz,  a  king  of  Erech],  meaning  “son  of  life”  (Barton).  In 
the  name  Lamech  is  seen  “the  Babylonian  Ramku,  ‘the  Priest’” 
(Sayce).  The  Sumerian  an-shu  “to  heaven”  may  also  be  read 
an-ku  which  if  mistaken  for  a  proper  name,  would  in  Hebrew  give 
Enoch  (Barton).  These  identifications  can  speak  for  themselves. 

Cf.  Dati-Enlil,  Dati  (Dhorme,  Beitrdge  zur  Assyriologie  VI  3  p.  78). 


138 


THE  OKIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


Following  is  a  table  of  the  identifications  made  by  scholars  of  the 
names  in  the  Berossus  list: 

1  ^Aloros  =  Aruru  (a  goddess),  Lal-ur  (a  part  of  Lal-ur-alim~ma) ^ 

and . -alim. 

2  ^Alaparos  =  Adapa  (=  Adam),  and  [A]lalgar. 

3  ’Amillaros,  Amelon  =  Amelu  (=  Enosh),  and  En-me-nun-na. 

4  ’Ammenon  =  ummdnu  (=  Cain),  Piliharriy  and  En-me-nun-na. 

5  Megalaros,  Megalanos  =  Amel-Aruru  and  Mahalal-el. 

6  Daonos,  Daos  =  Etana,  Laonus  from  I'd-an-na  (of . en-M-an-na) . 

7  Euedorakhos  =  En-me-dur-an-ki  (=  Enoch). 

8  ^Amempsinos  =  Amel-Sin,  Mutu-sha-Arakhiy  and  . . .  .-sib-zi-an-na. 

9  ^Otiartas  =  Uhar-Tutu.  ’Ardatas  =  Arad-gin. 

10  Xisuthros  =  Khasis-atra  =  Atra-khasis. 

My  own  identifications  of  these  names  follow : 

1  ’Al5ros  =  El-Ur. 

2  ^Alaparos  =  Alap-Ur. 

3  ’Amillaros  =  Amel-Ur.  ^Amelon  =  Amel-An. 

4  ’Ammenon  =  Ammen-An  (or  perhaps  {Ammi-An). 

5  Megalaros  =  Megal-Ur.  Megalanos  =  Megal-An. 

6  Daonos,  Da(v)onos  =  probably  Dan- An. 

7  Euedorakhos  =  probably  Eved-Ur  akh  “the  brother.” 

8  ^Amempsinos  ==  (?). 

9  ^Ardatas  =  Ar-data.  ^Otiartas  =  (?). 

10  Xisuthros  =  Khasis-Atra  =  Atra-khasis. 

On  examination  it  will  be  observed  that  in  the  identifications 
proposed  by  others  in  every  instance  there  is  either  the  omission 
of  the  god’s  name,  or  one  or  all  of  the  consonants  have  been  changed; 
and  that  in  my  own  identifications,  all  the  elements  are  accounted 
for,  and  not  a  single  consonant  has  been  changed. 

I  am  convinced  that,  in  declining  to  follow  the  efforts  of  others 
to  show  that  the  Biblical  names  are  borrowed  from  these  lists,  and 
in  refusing  to  accept  the  conclusion  that  these  identifications  ‘‘make 
it  clear  that  the  Biblical  list  and  the  Babylonian  are  fundamentally 
identical,”  without  appealing  to  the  argument  concerning  the 


VI.  THE  ANTEDILUVIAN  PATRIARCHS. 


139 


migrations  of  peoples  and  traditions,  as  discussed  in  Chapter  II, 
I  shall  be  in  a  large  company;  for  it  surely  must  be  apparent  to 
every  unprejudiced  student  that  it  requires  a  very  big  stretch  of 
the  imagination  to  believe  that  Israel  accepted  as  a  list  of  its  pro¬ 
genitors  such  a  concoction  made  up  from  these  as  well  as  the  other 
sources  referred  to.  And  further,  it  must  be  conceded  as  unfor¬ 
tunate  that  a  statement  like  the  following  has  gone  broadcast 
everywhere:  ^‘The  ten  Babylonian  kings  who  reigned  before  the 
flood  have  also  been  accepted  in  the  Bible  as  the  ten  antediluvian 
patiiarchs,  and  the  agreement  is  perfect  in  all  details.^’^^  Let  us 
refer  here  also  to  an  identification  mentioned  above,  that  has  been 
made  upon  other  grounds. 

In  the  library  of  Ashurbanipal  there  was  found  a  legend  which 
had  apparently  been  copied  from  a  tablet  that  had  come  from 
Sippar,  which  relates  how  Shamash  and  Adad,  the  gods  of  divina¬ 
tion,  called  a  seer  En-me-dur-an-M  to  their  assembly,  and  gave 
him  the  tablets  of  the  gods  whereby  he  could  divine  the  mysteries 
of  heaven  and  earth  through  the  pouring  of  oil  on  water  and  with 
the  cedar  staff.  This  individual,  as  we  have  seen  above,  is  regarded 
as  the  origin  of  the  Biblical  Enoch. 

In  the  Old  Testament  the  only  light  we  have  concerning  Enoch, 
besides  the  fact  that  his  father  built  a  city,  and  called  the  name 
of  the  city  after  the  name  of  his  own  son,  Enoch,^’  is  that  he  lived 
three  hundred  and  sixty-five  years  and  walked  with  God,  and  ^^he 
was  not,  for  God  took  him.^^^^  From  the  apocryphal  apocalyptic 
literature,  however,  of  the  later  Jewish  period,  we  get  the  impres¬ 
sion  that  there  was  a  wide  circle  of  legends  concerning  Enoch.  We 
are  told  that  through  visions  he  had  gained  much  knowledge  of 
what  was  going  on  in  heaven  and  earth,  whereby  he  was  able  to 
foretell  the  future.  In  the  words  of  Jude,  who  apparently  quoted 

33  Delitzsch,  Babel  and  Bible  p.  41. 

34  Genesis  4 : 17  and  5 ;  23  f . 


140 


THE  OEIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


this  literature,  Enoch  prophesied,  ^‘behold  the  Lord  coming  with 
ten  thousand  of  his  saints  to  execute  judgment’^  (verses  14-16). 

Zimmern,  followed  by  nearly  all  Babylonists,  would  have  us 
believe  that  the  Old  Testament  character  Enoch,  as  well  as  the 
legends  which  prevailed  in  the  West,  had  their  origin  in  this  ^^mytho¬ 
logical  king  of  Sippar,  Enmeduranki”  who,  they  say,  was  ^Hhe 
father  of  Babylonian  divination.^^^^^  Let  us  here  inquire  what 
proofs  have  been  offered  for  this  identification. 

Assuming  that  Euedorakhos  in  Berossus’  list  is  the  same  as 
Enmedurankiy  three  arguments  have  been  offered  for  the  theory 
that  he  was  Hebraized  into  Enoch: 

1.  Both  Enoch  and  Enmeduranki  were  seers,  who  in  the  later 
period  were  recognized  as  having  been  in  communion  with  their 
deities,  and  were  able  to  reveal  the  mysteries  of  heaven  and  earth. 

2.  Euedorakhos  was  the  seventh  in  Berossus^  list,  while  Enoch, 
although  third  or  fifth  in  the  J.  list,  was  seventh  in  the  P.  list. 

3.  Enmeduranki  being  in  the  service  of  the  sun-god  Shamash,  to 
Enoch  were  attributed  three  hundred  and  sixty-five  as  the  years 
of  his  life,  which  is  the  number  of  days  in  the  solar  year. 

If  Enoch  and  Enmeduranki  were  the  same,  the  second  point, 
namely  that  both  are  the  seventh  in  the  list  would  naturally  show 
an  interesting  coincidence,  at  least  with  one  of  the  Biblical  lists,  but 
the  corresponding  name  in  the  Ashmolean  tablet  is  eighth  in  the  fist. 

The  third  point,  which  has  no  support  from  the  cuneiform  text, 
for  nothing  is  said  concerning  the  number  of  years  the  seer  lived, 
could  just  as  well  be  said  of  any  one  of  the  myriads  of  devotees, 
not  only  of  Shamash,  but  of  all  the  many  other  sun-gods.  More¬ 
over  in  both  the  Berossus  and  the  Ashmolean  lists,  Euedorakhos 
lived  as  long  as  the  longest-lived  of  the  kings.  A  discussion  of 
the  remaining  argument  that  both  were  seers,  follows. 

35  See  Zimmern,  Ibidem  pp.  540  f;  Jeremias,  Ibidem  p.  119;  Driver,  Ibidem 
p.  78;  etc. 


VI.  THE  ANTEDILUVIAN  PATRIARCHS. 


141 


In  the  Babylonian  text  we  know  of  many  of  whom  it  is  said  they 
were  sons  of  deity,  to  whom  the  secrets  of  the  gods  were  revealed, 
and  who  interpreted  the  will  of  the  deities.  Thousands  of  seers, 
doubtless,  in  Babylonian  history  claimed  to  be  able  to  divine  the 
will  of  the  gods.  In  the  Old  and  New  Testaments,  as  well  as  in 
the  apocryphal  hterature,  we  also  learn  of  seers,  of  whom  it  is 
said,  that,  through  visions  or  otherwise,  they  knew  the  mysteries 
of  heaven  and  earth  and  the  will  of  God,  whereby  they  were  enabled 
to  prophesy  for  the  people. 

There  was,  however,  a  great  difference  in  the  methods  pursued, 
at  least  in  Biblical  times,  through  which  the  will  of  the  deity  was 
revealed.  In  Babylonia,  the  seers  observed  the  markings  of  a 
liver  of  an  animal,  or  the  positions  of  the  stars  of  the  heavens,  or 
the  effect  produced  by  the  pouring  of  water  upon  oil,  as  well  as 
many  other  methods  whereby  they  ascertained  the  will  of  the  gods. 
There  are  indications  that  their  libraries  were  filled  with  omen 
tablets  and  texts  containing  magical  formulae.  While  we  know 
that  the  Hittites,  Etruscans,  and  even  the  Greeks  also  practiced 
divination,  it  especially  flourished  in  Babylonia.  Ezekiel  tells  us 
that  Nebuchadnezzar,  ^^king  of  Babylon,  stood  at  the  parting  of 
the  way,  at  the  head  of  the  two  ways,  to  use  divination:  he  shook 
the  arrows  to  and  fro,  he  consulted  the  teraphim;  he  looked  in 
the  liver (21:21).  In  the  late  period,  the  magician,  enchanter, 
sorcerer,  and  Chaldean,  as  is  well  known,  were  important  factors 
in  the  life  of  Babylonia. 

In  the  wide  range  of  history  and  custom,  as  represented  by  the 
literature  of  the  Old  Testament,  we  have  considerable  diversity 
of  law,  teaching,  and  practice.  We  find  that  the  services  of  the 
diviner  Balaam  were  used;  that  dreams  were  interpreted;  that  the 
teraphim j  the  rod,  and  the  lot,  were  consulted;  nevertheless,  we 
know  that  the  religion  of  Yahweh  was  fundamentally  opposed  to 
divination.  This  is  summed  up  in  Deuteronomy:  there  shall  not 


142 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


be  found  with  thee  anyone  that  maketh  his  son  or  his  daughter  to 
pass  through  the  fire,  one  that  useth  divination,  one  that  practiceth 
augury,  or  an  enchanter,  or  a  sorcerer,  or  a  charmer,  or  a  con- 
suiter  with  a  familiar  spirit,  or  a  wizard,  or  a  necromancer^’  (18 : 10  f). 
Situated  as  Israel  was,  the  efforts  to  make  the  religion  imageless 
and  free  from  divination,  were  naturally  never  fully  realized,  in 
spite  of  the  work  of  the  prophets  and  the  reformers.  Nevertheless, 
the  law  and  the  prophets  in  spirit  and  in  practice  were  against 
such. 

In  the  light  of  what  we  know  concerning  Israel  and  divination, 
we  are  now  asked  to  believe  that  the  J.  writer,  and  later  the  P. 
writer  during  the  exile,  having  become  acquainted  with  this  Enme- 
durankij  king  of  Sippar,  the  supposed  ^^mythological  father  of 
divination,”  whose  name  appeared  as  Euedorakhos,  the  seventh 
antediluvian  Chaldean  king  of  Babylon,  and  that,  in  spite  of  the 
fact  that  divination  by  astrology,  by  hepatoscopy,  by  oil,  etc.,  were 
so  antagonistic  to  the  Hebrew  religion,  these  Jewish  writers  in  the 
palmy  days  of  Israel  created  the  character  Enoch,  by  Hebraizing 
this  Enmeduranki]  and  the  Jews  accepted  this  fraud.  This,  in 
the  light  of  research  and  our  knowledge  of  Hebrew  civilization,  as 
well  as  what  is  written  above,  certainly  is  not  plausible. 

Sumerists  say  that  En-me-dur-an-ki  is  Sumerian.  If  that  were 
true,  it  should  be  translated  ^Tord  of  the  decree  of  the  connecting- 
link  of  heaven  and  earth.”  This  would  not  be  a  name,  but  a  title. 
And  if  that  were  true,  is  it  not  strange  that  the  gods  of  divination 
in  whose  service  he  was,  should  be  the  West  Semitic  Adad  and 
Shamash?  The  identification  with  Euedorakhos  of  Berossus  seems 
reasonable,  and  especially  in  view  of  the  eighth  name  of  the  Ash- 
molean  tablet,  written  En-me-dur-an-na,  the  last  sign  of  which, 
namely  na,  as  Langdon  has  correctly  said,  should  be  ki^  and  espe¬ 
cially  since  na  and  ki  are  quite  similar  in  this  period.  As  Zimmern, 
who  originally  made  the  identification,  said,  Enmeduranki  was  pro- 


VI.  THE  ANTEDILUVIAN  PATRIAKCHS. 


143 


nounced  Evvedoranki  or  Evedoranki;^^  and  since  Eved  represents 
perfectly  the  Hebrew  "Ehhed  or  "Eved,  so  commonly  found  in 
names,  and  Eued  of  the  Greek  EueddrakhoSj  in  the  absence  of 
the  digamma,  also  represents  the  same  pronunciation,  I  have  pro¬ 
posed,  as  already  mentioned,  that  the  name  be  read  Eved-Urakh. 
This  finds  corroboration  in  the  following. 

In  the  P.  list,  the  eighth  name  is  written  Methushelakh,  which 
in  the  J.  list  is  written  Methusha^el  or  Methu-sha-El  ^‘Man  of  El.’’ 
In  other  words,  Elakh  takes  the  place  of  El,  and  it  parallels  the 
Urakh  of  Euedorakhos,  instead  of  the  usual  Ur.  If  we  separate 
the  akh  from  both,  we  will  have  in  the  one  case  Methu-sE-El  akh, 
which  leaves  the  name  the  same  as  Methu-sha-El;  and  in  the  other 
Eved-Ur  akh,  which  would  be  similar  to  five  other  names  in  the  list, 
namely  those  compounded  with  Ur.  A  possible  explanation  of 
akh  brother”  that  is  of  the  one  who  preceded,  follows. 

In  the  P.  list,  or  the  ^‘book  of  the  generations  of  Adam,”  the  one 
thing  in  the  entire  chapter  besides  monotonous  details  of  names  and 
numbers,  is  the  reference  to  Enoch  having  been  taken  by  God. 
The  years  of  his  life  are  less  than  half  of  the  shortest-lived  of  the 
other  patriarchs.  Probably  in  the  original  tradition,  Methu-sha-El 
was  not  the  son  of  Enoch,  who  was  translated,  but  a  ^‘brother” 
who  replaced  him.  In  the  Berossus  list  the  only  title  added  to 
any  of  the  names  is  shepherd,”  to  Daonos.  Both  Enoch  and 
Daonos  immediately  precede  Methu-sh^-El  akh  and  Eved-Ur  akh. 
What  seems  to  substantiate  this  is  found  in  the  following. 

The  seventh  of  the  Ashmolean  list,  which  is  unfortunately  injured, 

appears  thus:  . sih-zi-an-na.  There  is  sufficient  room  for 

the  name  before  these  words,  so  that  they  probably  are  an  epithet. 
They  can  be  translated,  ‘True  shepherd  of  heaven,”  and  also  “true 
shepherd  of  Anu,”  or  “El.”  But  zi  can  also  be  translated  “to  lift 


p.  532. 


144 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


up,  to  take  and  in  view  of  the  Biblical  tradition  which  tells  us 

that  Enoch,  the  corresponding  person  in  the  list,  was  taken  by  God, 
it  seems  to  me  that  this  epithet  can  very  properly  be  translated 
^Hhe  shepherd  who  was  taken  to  heaven, or  ^^who  was  taken  by 
El  (God)  .^^  As  stated,  both  this  kihg  and  Enoch  stand  seventh  in 
the  list,  thus: 

Biblical 

7  Enoch,  ^^God  took  him^^ 

8  Methu-sh®-El,  ‘‘brother’^ 

Ashmolean 

7  . ,  ‘Hhe  shepherd  whom  El  took” 

8  Eved-Ur  an-na  (or  an-hi  for  ahh  ^^brother”) 

Berossus 

6  Da(v)onos,  ^^shepherd” 

7  Eved-Ur,  “brother” 

An-na,  as  already  mentioned,  is  very  probably  a  mistake  for  an-hi 
representing  akh  “brother.”  If  this  explanation  of  the  epithet 
should  prove  correct,  it  will  be  the  first  connection  that  has  been 
shown  to  exist  between  the  so-called  Chaldean  lists  and  the  Bibhcal, 
except  that  there  are  ten  names  ending  with  the  hero  of  the  deluge. 

The  fact  that  there  are  ten  names,  ending  with  the  deluge-hero 
in  the  three  lists,  besides  this  probable  explanation  of  the  epithet, 
makes  it  reasonably  certain  that  there  is  a  common  origin  for  the 
tradition,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  Biblical  lists  give  the  “genera¬ 
tions”  of  the  first  man  created,  and  in  the  two  Babylonian  sources 
there  is  no  thought  of  referring  to  primaevals  or  even  aboriginals, 
but  to  ruling  dynasties;  in  the  case  of  Berossus  to  those  of  Babylon, 
Pantibiblos,  and  Larak;  and  in  the  other,  which  is  written  in 

See  sag-zi  =  resha  nashUy  shaqiX  sha  reshi,  etc.,  Delitzsch,  Sumerische  Glossar 
p.  224.  In  addition  to  zi  meaning  nashU  ‘To  lift  up,”  it  is  thought  to  have  the 
value  also  “to  take,”  see  Meissner  SAI  1326.  This  is  the  same  word  used  in  the 
parallel  passage  in  Genesis. 


VI.  THE  ANTEDILUVIAN  PATRIARCHS. 


145 


Sumerian,  to  Khabur,  Larsa,  Dur-Tibiri,  Larak,  Sippar,  and  Su- 
kur-ru(Lam).  The  lone  city  referred  to  in  the  Biblical  lists  was 
built  by  Cain,  and  called  Enoch. 

There  is  absolutely  nothing  in  any  of  the  lists  to  show  that  the 
Biblical  were  derived  from  the  so-called  Chaldean  or  Sumerian  lists, 
in  spite  of  all  that  has  been  written  on  the  subject.  And  it  must  be 
admitted  that  the  reverse  is  also  true.  It  seems  to  me,  however, 
in  view  of  all  that  has  been  said  in  these  lectures  on  migrations  of 
peoples  and  their  traditions,  that  we  can  only  decide  that  the  com¬ 
mon  source  of  the  legend  was  in  Amurru.  As  we  have  seen  there 
are  two  versions  in  the  Old  Testament.  In  the  list  said  to  have 
been  handed  down  by  Berossus,  there  are  marks  also  of  two  dis¬ 
tinct  versions,  which  show  that  one  probably  had  received  a  local 
coloring  at  the  Amorite  city  Mari,  where  Uru  was  worshipped; 
and  that  the  other  came  from  the  Amorite  Khana  or  *Ana,  where 
the  god  Anu  was  worshipped.  In  this  way  we  can  account  for  the 
names  with  variant  deities,  like  Amel-Ur  and  Amel-Anu;  Megal-Ur 
and  Megal-Anu,  as  well  as  such  variations  as  ’Ardatas  and  Otiartas, 
etc.  The  Ashmolean,  it  seems  to  me,  is  another  version  of  this 
Amorite  tradition,  which  was  written  in  Southern  Babylonia,  where 
in  the  early  period  the  Sumerian  language  was  used  in  practically 
all  the  cities. 


VII 


THE  DELUGE  STORY 

Ever  since  George  Smith  of  the  British  Museum,  in  1875,  pub- 
hshed  the  well-known  story  of  the  deluge,  as  found  in  the  Gilgamesh 
epic,  which  had  been  discovered  in  the  library  of  Ashurbanipal  at 
Nineveh,  most  Assyriologists  have  held  that  this  epic  furnished 
Israel  with  its  story.  And  following  the  discovery  of  a  version, 
written  close  to  2000  B.  C.,  Biblical  scholars  everywhere  seem  to 
have  been  convinced  that  ^Hhe  Hebrew  narrative  must  be  derived 
^  from  the  Babylonian.’^  Moreover,  the  clearest  proof  for  the  claim 
that  Israel  borrowed  much  of  its  religion  and  culture  from  Baby¬ 
lonia,  it  is  asserted,  is  to  be  found  in  the  deluge  story  or  stories  as 
handed  down  by  the  people  of  that  land. 

It  is  needless  here  to  review  the  resemblances  and  the  differences 
of  the  Biblical  and  the  Gilgamesh  stories  of  the  deluge,  for  this  has 
/  been  done  many  times.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  there  must  be  a  com- 
r-  mon  origin  as  shown  by  such  details,  as  are  found  in  both  the 
Biblical  and  the  Babylonian,  as  the  divine  decision  to  send  the  flood, 
the  advice  to  construct  an  ark  or  ship,  the  use  of  asphalt  to  make  it 
water-tight,  the  destruction  of  mankind,  except  the  hero  and  those 
with  him,  the  grounding  of  the  ship  on  the  mountain,  the  sending 
forth  of  birds,  the  smelling  of  the  sweet  savor;  etc.  These  and 
other  details  of  the  two  stories  leave  no  doubt  as  to  their  being 
related.  The  version  of  the  deluge  in  the  Gilgamesh  Epic,  was 
written  in  the  seventh  century  B.  C.^ 

The  early  version,  referred  to  above,  is  preserved,  in  the  Pierpont 
Morgan  Library  Collection,  in  a  fragment  of  a  large  tablet  which 

1  For  the  translation  and  transliteration  of  all  the  deluge  versions,  see  Appendix 
to  Clay,  A  Hebrew  Deluge  Story  in  Cuneiform. 

(146) 


VII.  THE  DELUGE  STORY. 


147 


had  been  inscribed  on  the  28th  day  of  Shebet,  in  the  11th  year  of 
Ainini-zaduga;  which,  according  to  our  present  understanding,  was 
about  1966  B.  C.  This  version,  antedating  Moses  by  several  cen¬ 
turies,  has  given  the  Babylonists  one  of  the  two  chief  arguments 
advanced  for  the  claim  that  the  narrative  was  borrowed  by  Israel. 

A  recent  study  of  this  early  version  shows  that  it  not  only  refers 
to  the  deluge,  but  to  a  dire  famine  which  preceded;  and  what  is 
very  important,  that  it  is  an  early  version  of  a  well-known  inscrip¬ 
tion  from  Nineveh,  written  thirteen  centuries  later,  known  as  the 
Ea  and  Atra-khasis  legend.  The  latter,  however,  only  referred  to 
the  famine.  The  early  recension  of  the  famine  and  deluge  is  of  the 
greatest  importance  in  this  connection,  in  that  many  Amorite  words 
of  the  original  version  are  still  to  be  recognized  in  it. 

Besides  these  versions  of  the  deluge  story,  others  have  been  found. 
In  the  British  Museum  there  is  a  fragment  of  one  written  also  about 
the  time  of  Ashurbanipal.  It  furnishes  us  with  the  conversation  of 
the  god  Ea  with  the  hero  Atra-khasis  concerning  the  construction 
of  the  ship,  and  with  what  it  should  be  loaded.  There  is  also  a 
small  fragment  in  the  Museum  of  the  University  of  Pennsylvania 
of  thirteen  partially  preserved  lines,  written  probably  in  the  Cassite 
period,  about  1400  B.  C.  To  these  must  be  added  the  version 
written  in  Greek,  as  handed  down  by  Berossus,  who  lived  about 
250  B.  C.,  in  which  the  heroes  name  is  given  as  Xisuthros,  repre¬ 
senting  the  transposition  of  the  elements  of  the  name,  Atra- 
khasis. 

A  few  years  ago  Professor  Poebel,  now  of  the  University  of  Ros¬ 
tock,  published  a  Sumerian  version  of  the  flood  which  had  been 
found  at  Nippur.  It  is  an  epitomized  story  of  the  deluge,  which 
Poebel  holds  was  written  some  time  between  2300  and  1300  B.  C. 
This  version  has  several  points  in  common  with  the  Gilgamesh 
story.  The  phrase,  ^^when  for  seven  days  and  seven  nights  the 
storm-flood  overwhelmed  the  land,’^  is  paralleled  in  the  Gilgamesh 


148 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


story  by  the  phrase,  ^^six  days  and  nights  the  wind  drives,  the 
flood-tempest  overwhelms  the  land;  when  the  seventh  day  arrives 
the  flood-tempest  subsides  in  the  onslaught.’^  Both  versions  also 
refer  to  ^Hhe  wall,’’  when  the  hero  was  apprised  of  the  impending 
deluge.  The  title  which  Atra-khasis  received  from  the  gods, 
namely,  Um-napishtim-rilqu,  meaning,  “the  day  of  life  is  extended,” 
is  reproduced  in  the  Sumerian  version,  as  Zi-tl(d)-suddu,  which 
means  the  same  (see  infra) .  These  two  versions  have  other  details 
in  common,  as  the  opening  of  the  hatch,  the  offering  of  a  sacrifice, 
etc.  It  is  perfectly  clear,  however,  as  others  have  pointed  out, 
that  the  Sumerian  story  is  only  an  epitomized  narrative,  for  not  a 
few  details  found  in  the  other  versions  are  wanting  in  it. 

There  are  also  striking  differences  between  the  Sumerian  and  the 
Gilgamesh  versions,  among  which  is  the  place  where  the  hero  lived 
after  his  apotheosis.  In  the  Sumerian  version  he  was  caused  to 
dwell  in  the  land  or  mountain,  which  some  scholars  have  called 
Dilmun;  though  the  reading  of  the  name  is  by  no  means  certain. 
If  it  should  prove  correct  that  Dilmun  is  referred  to,  the  version 
then  very  probably  places  the  hero,  after  he  received  the  gift  of 
immortality,  on  an  island  to  the  south,  outside  of  Babylonia. 

In  the  Gilgamesh  story,  the  hero  was  caused  to  dwell  at  the 
mouth  of  rivers;  but  in  going  there  Gilgamesh  traversed  seas,  and 
crossed  over  mountains  to  a  place  where  a  cedar  tree  was  being 
felled,  and  where  he  was  advised  to  cut  a  hundred  and  twenty  trees 
in  the  forest  to  construct  a  boat.  There  can  be  Uttle  doubt  from 
these  and  other  facts  mentioned  in  the  story  that  the  Gilgamesh 
Epic  places  “the  waters  of  death”  beyond  the  Mediterranean 
shore.  This  fact,  it  must  be  admitted,  peculiarly  identifies  the 
legend  with  the  West.  If  the  mountain  in  the  Sumerian  version 
is  Dilmun,  and  this,  as  is  held,  was  on  an  island  to  the  south  of  Baby¬ 
lonia,  doubtless  we  have  in  this  a  coloring  which  is  due  to  other 
influences. 


VII.  THE  DELUGE  STORY. 


149 


The  story  of  the  Sumerian  recension  of  the  deluge  is  interrupted 
at  the  beginning  of  column  six  by  an  incantation  formula,  after 
which  the  story  is  continued.  Whether  other  incantation  formulae 
were  found  in  the  missing  portions,  of  course,  cannot  be  determined. 
This  reminds  us  of  the  use  to  which  the  sorcerer  put  other  myths 
and  legends. 

This  is  the  only  Sumerian  version  or  story  of  the  flood  that  is  at 
present  known.  Professor  Langdon  has  claimed  to  have  another, 
which  he  published  under  the  title  ^‘Sumerian  Epic  of  Paradise,  the 
Flood  and  the  Fall  of  Man.^^  As  far  as  I  can  ascertain  all  scholars 
agree  that  it  has  nothing  whatsoever  to  do  with  the  deluge.  In 
his  original  publication  the  crucial  line  bearing  on  the  supposed 
deluge  was  not  translated.  In  his  French  translation  of  the  work,^ 
he  read  it:  ^^0  Ninkharsag,  I  will  destroy  the  fields  with  a  deluge.’’ 
Prince  translated  this:  ^‘The  fields  of  Ninkharsag  I  will  inundate”; 
but  Witzel,  followed  by  Mercer,  translates:  Ninkharsag  was  made 
pregnant.”^  There  can  be  no  question  but  that  the  context  fully 
bears  out  the  last  mentioned.  In  short,  there  can  be  no  doubt, 
as  stated  above,  that  the  poem  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  deluge. 

As  is  generally  recognized,  the  Old  Testament  contains  two 
different  and  originally  independent  accounts  of  the  deluge  which 
are  combined  into  one,  but  which  scholars  feel,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
creation  stories,  can  be  definitely  separated  into  what  have  been 
called  the  Jehovist  and  the  Priestly  versions.  As  already  stated, 
most  scholars  hold  that  the  former  was  written  in  the  ninth  or  eighth 
century,  and  the  latter  in  the  fifth;  others,  however,  hold  that  both 
stories  are  more  ancient,  which  view,  it  seems  to  me,  is  very  probably 
correct. 

As  has  already  been  noted,  the  versions  found  in  Babylonia  have 
much  in  common  with  the  Hebrew  stories.  This  fact  has  given  rise 

2  Langdon,  Po^e  Sumerien  du  Paradis,  du  Dduge  et  de  la  Chutede  VHomme. 

3  See  Mercer,  Jour,  of  the  Soc.  of  Biblical  Research  IV  51  ff. 


150 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


to  the  conclusion,  which  has  been  many  times  restated,  that  either 
the  Biblical  stories  are  derived  from  the  Babylonian,  or  the  Babylon¬ 
ian  is  derived  from  the  Biblical,  or  that  they  have  a  common  origin. 

Assyriologists,  as  far  as  I  know,  have  generally  dismissed  as  an 
impossibility  the  idea  that  there  was  a  common  Semitic  tradition, 
which  developed  in  Israel  in  one  way,  and  in  Babylonia  in  another. 
They  have  unreservedly  declared  that  the  Bibhcal  stories  have  been 
borrowed  from  Babylonia,  in  which  land  they  were  indigenous.  To 
me  it  has  always  seemed  perfectly  reasonable  that  both  stories  had 
a  common  origin  among  the  Semites,  some  of  whom  entered  Baby¬ 
lonia,  while  others  carried  their  traditions  into  Palestine.  The 
unanimous  decision  of  Assyriologists,  however,  seemed  difficult  to 
cope  with;  nevertheless,  this  was  attempted  in  Amurru  the  Home  of 
the  Northern  Semites y  with  results  which  have  already  been  men¬ 
tioned.  Now,  after  years  of  additional  study,  I  feel  that  this  can 
be  done  much  more  effectively. 

In  demonstrating  that  the  views  of  the  Babylonists  are  no  longer 
tenable,  let  me  present  what  I  have  to  say  under  the  four  heads 
which  have  been  outlined  in  the  Chapter  II. 

The  first  of  these  four  arguments  has  already  been  fully  discussed, 
namely,  that  while  no  migrations  from  Babylonia  into  Amurru  are 
known  to  have  taken  place,  when  such  traditions  would  have  been 
carried  there,  and  that  while  there  is  no  proof  that  Babylonian 
religious  ideas  were  transplanted  to  Amurru,  we  have  a  mass  of 
evidence  to  prove  that  in  many  periods  Amorites  not  only  poured 
into  alluvial  Babylonia,  but  carried  with  them  their  religion.  This 
argument,  which  is  fully  discussed  in  Chapter  II,  the  writer  feels  is 
most  cogent  in  showing  not  only  the  futility  of  the  Babylonist 
assertions,  but  that  the  origin  of  such  legends,  which  both  peoples 
had  in  common,  was  to  be  found  in  Amurru. 

The  second  proof  of  my  contention  that  these  stories  are  not  of 
Babylonian  origin,  but  are  Amorite,  is  based  on  a  study  of  the 


VII.  THE  DELUGE  STORY. 


151 


forces  of  nature  responsible  for  the  deluge.  As  is  well  known,  the 
more  effective  of  the  two  chief  arguments  that  have  been  advanced 
for  the  Babylonian  origin  of  these  stories, is  that  they  are  either 
based  upon  nature  myths,  due  to  the  climate,  or  upon  recollections 
of  an  actual  extraordinary  inundation  of  Southern  Babylonia,  where 
the  story  was  originated,  and  whence  in  time  it  was  carried  to 
Palestine.  As  the  late  Canon  Driver,  in  quoting  Professor  Zimmern, 
puts  it:  ^‘The  very  essence  of  the  Biblical  narrative  presupposes  a 
country  liable,  like  Babylonia,  to  inundations;  so  that  it  cannot 
be  doubted  that  the  story  was  indigenous  in  Babylonia  and  trans¬ 
planted  to  Palestine.’’®  Or,  as  Sir  William  Frazer,  in  quoting  the 
late  Professor  Jastrow  says:  the  basis  for  the  Biblical  story  “is  the 
yearly  phenomenon  of  the  rain  and  stormy  season  which  lasts  in 
Babylonia  several  months  and  during  which  time  whole  districts  in 
the  Euphrates  valley  are  submerged.”® 

The  second  quotation,  which  represents  the  view  of  many,  we 
can  peremptorily  dismiss  as  a  complete  misunderstanding,  as  I  have 
already  shown,  of  the  climatic  conditions  of  Babylonia  (see  pp.  75  f.) . 
A  similar  result  awaits  the  first-mentioned  quotation  and  argument. 

Before  discussing  the  force  which  caused  the  deluge  as  given  in 
the  narratives,  let  me  refer  again  to  the  rains  of  Babylonia,  and  say 
a  word  with  reference  to  the  inundations  as  caused  by  the  rise  of 
the  rivers. 

The  history  of  this  land  is  the  history  of  the  two  rivers.  Without 
them,  it  would  not  have  been  inhabited  by  man.  Permanent  settle¬ 
ments  were  possible  in  this  alluvial  plain  only  after  the  two  rivers 
were  harnessed  by  the  building  of  embankments  and  canals  in  order 
to  direct  the  flood  water  into  escapes,  to  be  distributed  later  over 

^  The  second  argument,  based  on  the  antiquity  of  the  Babylonian  as  against  the 
Hebrew  version,  is  discussed  below. 

®  The  Book  of  Genesis  p.  107. 

®  Folk-lore  in  the  Old  Testament  I  p.  353. 


152 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


areas  to  be  irrigated.  In  spite  of  heroic  efforts  and  constant  atten¬ 
tion,  the  floods  frequently  played  havoc.  The  rise  of  the  Tigris  at 
Baghdad  is  usually  about  sixteen  feet,  but  occasionally  an  addi¬ 
tional  rise  of  about  five  feet  causes  trouble.  The  danger  of  destruc¬ 
tive  inundations  has  always  hung  over  the  inhabitants  of  the  plain. 
The  floods  in  Babylonia  are  mainly  due  to  the  rapid  melting  of 
the  snows  in  Armenia,  and  in  the  Kurdish  mountains.  For  further 
information  on  the  annual  inundations,  see  Chapter  III.  It  must 
be  conceded  that  the  people  living  in  that  land  could  appreciate 
flood  stories  as  well  as  any  people  known,  because  of  the  annual 
rise  of  the  rivers.  Of  course  this  could  be  said  nearly  as  well  of 
Egypt,  which  strange  to  say,  among  ancient  peoples  is  a  notable 
exception  in  that  it  did  not  have  a  flood  story. 

We  have  already  inquired  into  the  role  played  by  rains  in  Baby¬ 
lonia.  We  have  seen  that  while  the  rivers  furnished  the  land  with 
its  ^Tife  blood,’^  rain  had  relatively  httle  value.  We  have  seen  that 
the  records  kept  by  the  German  scientists  show  an  average  fall  of 
7  centimeters,  or  2.80  inches,  for  the  year,  and  those  by  the  English, 
4.98  inches.  We  have  further  seen  that  the  rains  of  Babylonia  are 
in  character  equivalent  to  New  England  summer  showers,  and  that 
the  country,  because  of  the  scarcity  of  rain,  could  almost  be  classed 
with  desert  lands.  While  it  would  seem,  as  admitted,  that  Baby¬ 
lonia  because  of  inundations  was  excellent  soil  for  deluge  stories, 
certainly  the  force  which  caused  the  deluge  could  not  have  been 
rain.  Let  us  now  examine  all  the  stories  or  versions  that  have  been 
preserved  in  Babylonia,  and  ascertain  what  force  is  mentioned  in 
them  which  brought  about  the  deluge. 

In  the  Gilgamesh  story,  Atra-khasis  is  told  to  say  to  the  people, 
in  explanation  as  to  why  he  was  building  the  ship,  beginning  with 
line  39 


’  See  A  Hebrew  Deluge  Story  74  f . 


VTI.  THE  DELUGE  STORY. 


153 


I  know  that  Enlil  hates  me,  and 
I  may  not  dwell  in  your  city; 

Nor  on  the  soil  of  Enlil  set  my  face. 

I  will  go  down  to  the  ocean;  with  [Ea]  my  lord,  I  will  dwell. 
[Upon]  you  will  he  then  rain  abundance. 

When  the  god  ordered  him  to  enter  the  ship,  the  hero  was  told: 

The  muir  kukki  at  even  will  send  a  heavy  rain. 

Enter  the  ship  and  close  the  door. 

That  time  arrived. 

The  muir  kukki  at  even  sent  a  heavy  rain. 

In  his  description  of  what  happened,  the  hero  informs  us : 

Of  the  storm,  I  observed  its  appearance. 

To  behold  the  storm,  I  dreaded. 

I  entered  the  ship  and  closed  the  door. 

To  the  master  of  the  ship,  to  Buzur-Amurru,  the  sailor, 

I  entrusted  the  great  house,  including  its  possessions. 

On  the  appearance  of  the  break  of  dawn. 

There  rises  from  the  foundation  of  the  heavens  a  black  cloud. 
Adad  thunders  in  the  midst  of  it. 

Nebo  and  Sharm  go  before. 

They  go  as  messengers  over  mountain  and  land. 

Urra-gal  tears  out  the  mast(?). 

En-Urta  proceeds;  he  advances  the  onset. 

The  Anunnaki  raise  the  torches. 

With  their  flashes  they  illuminate  the  land. 

One  day,  the  sto[im . 

Quickly  it  overwhelms,  and  [covers]  the  mountains. 

Six  days  and  six  nights 

The  wind  tears  and  the  flood-tempest  overwhelms  the  land. 

When  the  seventh  day  arrives,  the  flood-tempest  subsides  in  its 
onslaught. 

Which  had  fought  like  an  army. 

Does  this  sound  like  a  description  of  an  inundation  caused  by  the 
rise  of  the  rivers  of  Babylonia?  And  since  we  know  that  rain 


154 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


played  such  an  insignificant  role  in  the  Babylonian  climate,  is  this 
flood  story,  caused  by  a  mighty  rain,  due  to  Babylonian  coloring? 
Surely,  it  must  be  admitted  there  is  nothing  found  in  this  descrip¬ 
tion  of  the  force  which  caused  the  deluge  to  support  the  contentions 
of  the  Babylonists.  And  is  it  not  strange  that  in  this  very  level 
land  the  mountains  should  figure  so  prominently?  And  will  the 
Babylonist  and  the  Sumerist  tell  us  whether  this  fact  is  also  due  to 
Babylonian  coloring?  Moreover,  we  have  seen  that  the  gods,  Adad, 
Nebo,  Sharru,  Urra-gal,  and  En-Urta,  who  brought  on  the  deluge, 
are  all  Amorite  (see  also  below) .  But  let  us  return  to  our  study  of 
the  force  which  caused  the  deluge. 

The  small  Babylonian  and  Assyrian  fragments  and  the  Berossus 
story,  do  not  mention  the  cause  of  the  deluge;  but  the  ancient 
version  found  in  the  Pierpont  Morgan  Library  Collection  does. 
In  the  part  referring  to  the  deluge,  which  is  unfortunately  very 
fragmentary,  the  following  passage  occurs 

On  the  morrow  let  him  cause  it  to  rain  a  torrent. 

Let  him  in  the  night . 

Let  him  cause  it  to  rain  a  tempest. 

Let  it  come  upon  the  field  like  a  thief.  Let . 

Where  is  any  reference  to  the  inundating  rivers?  Here  again  the 
cause  of  the  deluge  is  clearly  and  definitely  stated  to  be  rain. 

In  the  Sumerian  version  the  flood  was  likewise  caused  by  mighty 
storms.  Beginning  with  Column  V,  it  reads 

All  the  mighty  windstorms  together  blew 
The  storm-flood  (amaru)  ....  raged, 

When  for  seven  days,  for  seven  nights, 

The  storm-flood  {amaru)  overwhelmed  the  land. 

Professor  Poebel  rightly  considered  that  the  Sumerian  word 
amaru  means  ^‘rainstorm,  rain  flood,  cloud  burst and  that  here 

*  See  A  Hebrew  Deluge  Story  p.  60. 

^  See  ibidem  70  f. 


VII.  THE  DELUGE  STORY. 


155 


the  two  forces  which  caused  the  deluge  are  the  same  as  those  given 
in  the  Gilgamesh  story,  namely,  sharu  ^^wind,^^  and  mekhu  dbubu 
^ destructive  rainstorm 

The  late  Professor  King,  appreciating  the  difficulties  involved  by 
admitting  this,  argued  that  the  Sumerian  word  amaru  was  equiva¬ 
lent  to  the  Babylonian  abubu  deluge,^’  more  accurately  ^ffiood’^; 
and  that  while  ^Tt  is  true  that  the  tempests  of  the  Sumerian  version 
probably  imply  rain,^’  he  said,  ^Tn  itself  the  term  abubu  implies 
flood  which  could  take  place  through  a  rise  of  the  river  unaccom¬ 
panied  by  heavy  local  rain.^’“ 

True,  a  rise  of  the  rivers  could  do  this;  but  all  the  stories,  includ¬ 
ing  this  Sumerian  epitome,  say  that  the  deluge  was  caused  by  a 
storm.  The  view  that  amaru  means  ^‘rainstorm,  storm-flood, 
cyclone,  whirlwind,’^  is  fully  supported  by  many  inscriptions, 
including  those  of  Gudea,  which  belong  to  the  classical  Sumerian 
period. Moreover,  abubu,  the  Semitic  equivalent  of  amaru,  means 
‘^whirlwind,  tornado,  cyclone even  in  the  Gilgamesh  story  it 
also  means  “the  storm (see  line  132).  In  the  Code  of  Hammu¬ 
rabi,  it  means  “hurricane.’^  In  other  words,  abubu  only  in  a  special 
sense  referred  to  “the  deluge.’^ 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  if  this  short  Sumerian  epitome  had  said  the 
deluge  was  caused  by  the  flooding  of  the  rivers,  it  would  only  show 
that  the  scribe,  who  made  it,  had  given  the  Amorite  narrative  a 
true  Babylonian  coloring;  while  later  scribes  either  copied  other 
versions  just  as  they  were,  or  they  stupidly  changed  the  cause  of 
the  deluge  and  gave  the  stories  a  coloring  which  belonged  elsewhere. 
But,  as  already  stated,  the  Sumerian  version  agrees  with  all  the 
other  versions  in  also  making  rain  the  force  that  caused  the  deluge. 

Poebel,  Historical  Texts  p.  54. 

Schweich  Lectures  1916,  p.  70,  note  2. 

1*  See  Delitzsch,  Sumerisches  Glossar  p.  12. 

i»  See  Muss-Arnolt,  Assyrian  Dictionary  p.  5. 


156 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


The  Babylonian  word  for  the  ^^river-flood/’  the  ^^high  tide  of 
water/’  is  melu.  The  word  occurs  in  the  famine  story,  but  it  is  not 
found  in  any  of  the  narratives  of  the  deluge.  Is  it  not  remarkable, 
therefore,  that  in  this  so-called  nature-myth  which  had  its  origin, 
it  is  declared,  in  the  flooding  of  the  rivers,  the  word  for  “river- 
flood”  {melu)  is  not  found? 

Let  us  inquire  also  as  to  the  cause  given  for  the  deluge  in  Berossus’ 
story.  It  reads:  “To  him  (Sisithrus)  the  deity  Kronos  foretold 
that  on  the  fifteenth  day  of  the  month  Desius  there  would  be  a 
deluge  of  rain.”^^  Besides  the  hero’s  name,  which  is  supplied  from 
the  preceding  phrase,  there  are  three  nuts  in  this  short  passage  for 
the  Babylonists  and  Sumerists  to  crack,  namely,  the  reference  to 
the  god  Kronos  who  was  II  or  El,  the  name  of  the  month,  and  the 
force  that  caused  the  deluge.  Certainly  they  are  not  Babylonian. 

Having  ascertained  that  all  the  stories  which  have  come  from 
Babylonia  which  mention  the  force  that  caused  the  deluge,  say  it 
was  rain,  and  that  they  make  no  kind  of  reference  to  the  overflowing 
of  the  rivers,  let  us  now  inquire  what  the  stories  from  S3a*ia,  or 
ancient  Amurru,  give  as  the  forces.  In  the  so-called  Jehovist 
version  we  read : 

For  after  seven  days  I  will  cause  it  to  rain  on  the  earth  forty 
days  and  forty  nights.  (Gen.  7:4). 

And  the  rain  fell  upon  the  earth  forty  days  and  forty  nights. 
(Gen.  7:12). 

In  this  version,  the  cause  of  the  deluge  is  rain  alone.  In  the  so- 
called  Priestly  story,  the  forces  are  described  as  follows: 

On  this  self-same  day  were  all  the  fountains  of  the  great 
deep  broken  up,  and  the  windows  of  heaven  were  opened. 
(Gen.  7:11). 

And  the  fountains  of  the  deep  and  the  windows  of  heaven  were 
stopped.  (Gen.  8:2). 


See  Cory,  Ancient  Fragments  p.  33. 


VII.  THE  DELUGE  STORY. 


157 


In  other  words,  the  Priestly  version,  besides  the  rain  which  poured 
from  the  heavens,  speaks  of  subterranean  waters  bursting  forth. 
When,  as  we  have  seen,  the  average  rainfall  at  Beirut  is  35.87  inches, 
and  in  the  mountains  of  Lebanon  it  is  50  inches,  we  can  appreciate 
that  this  is  truly  an  Amorite  coloring.  And  when,  for  example, 
we  see  the  water  from  three  springs  bursting  forth  from  the  earth 
at  the  foot  of  Mount  Hermon  and  creating  a  river,  we  can  appre¬ 
ciate  that  this  reference  to  subterranean  waters  is  also  true  to 
Amorite  coloring.  That  this  has  been  eliminated  from  the  story 
handed  down  by  the  Babylonians,  is  perfectly  intelligible,  when  we 
know  that  springs  do  not  gush  from  the  earth  in  the  alluvial  plain. 

The  story  handed  down  by  Lucian  in  De  dea  Syri,  also  gives  rain 
as  the  force: 

The  fountains  of  the  deep  were  opened  and  the  rain  descended 
in  torrents,  when  the  rivers  swelled  and  the  sea  spread  far  over 
the  land,  when  there  was  nothing  but  water. 

This  coincides  with  the  Priestly  narrative.  Moreover,  we  ought 
to  credit  Lucian,  in  his  efforts  to  explain  the  deluge,  with  having 
presented  what  at  least  appeared  to  intelligent  people  as  a  reason¬ 
able  cause.  In  short,  the  narratives  from  Amurru  give,  as  the 
forces  which  caused  the  deluge,  rain  from  the  heavens;  and  also 
the  breaking  up  of  the  fountains  of  the  deep. 

As  long  ago  as  1883,  Professor  Suess  of  Vienna,  appreciating  the 
difficulty  involved,  and  realizing  that  the  cause  as  given  in  the 
Babylonian  story  was  insufficient  to  account  for  a  deluge  in  Baby¬ 
lonia,  supplemented  the  fall  of  rain  by  a  violent  earthquake  and 
the  bursting  of  a  typhoon,  in  the  Persian  Gulf.^^  Of  course,  Suess 
could  find  no  proof  for  this  in  the  Babylonian  story;  so  he  inter¬ 
preted  ^Hhe  foundations  of  the  deep’^  of  Genesis,  as  referring  to 
such  seismic  disturbances. 


See  Suess,  The  Face  of  the  Earth  I  24  fif. 


158 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


Professor  Sayce,  also  apparently  appreciating  the  difficulty 
involved,  assumed  that  such  a  convulsion  of  nature  took  place; 
for  he  says,  ^‘the  whole  conception  takes  us  back  to  the  alluvial 
plain  of  Babylonia,  liable  at  any  time  to  be  inundated  by  the 
waters  of  the  Persian  Gulf,  and  is  wholly  inapplicable  to  a  moun¬ 
tainous  country  like  Palestine  where  rain  only  could  have  produced 
a  flood.’^i® 

The  late  Professor  Dehtzsch,  in  his  famous  lecture  Babel  and 
Bible,’’  also  appreciating  the  difficulty  presented  by  Suess,  in  order 
to  be  consistent  in  his  views,  without  any  regard  for  the  cause  as 
given  by  the  stories,  also  says:  that  after  the  traditions  ^Travelled 
to  Canaan,  owing  to  the  totally  different  conformation  of  the  land 
in  this  latter  country,  it  was  forgotten  that  the  sea  had  played  the 
principal  r61e.”^^ 

It  is  needless  to  repeat  here  that  this  of  course  gives  a  different 
cause  for  the  deluge  than  that  clearly  stated  in  all  the  stories  that 
have  come  down  to  us.  Moreover,  there  were  myriads  of  intelligent 
residents  of  Syria,  and  Palestine,  including  the  Biblical  writers  and 
Lucian,  who  did  believe  in  a  deluge  caused  by  ^^rain”  and  ^Hhe 
fountains  of  the  deep.” 

The  purpose  of  citing  here  what  these  scholars  have  said  in  their 
efforts  to  explain  the  deluge  is  to  show  how  it  had  been  appreciated 
by  them  that  there  is  a  real  difficulty  in  believing  that  rain  could 
have  caused  a  deluge  in  Babylonia. 

We  have  seen  that  the  average  fall  of  rain  is  35.87  inches  in  Beirut, 
and  50  inches  in  the  Lebanon  mountains;  and  that  most  of  it  comes 
down  in  the  three  winter  months.  An  average  fall  of  50  inches 
would  mean  a  fall  in  some  years  of  80  inches,  or  even  more.  Sup¬ 
pose  that  at  one  time  there  had  been  a  fall  of  100  inches  in  the 
comparatively  short  period  of  ^Torty  days  and  nights,”  what  would 

Early  History  of  the  Hebrews  p.  125. 

Babel  and  Bible  p.  40. 


VII.  THE  DELUGE  STORY. 


159 


have  been  the  result  in  certain  districts  of  that  land?  Entire  towns 
and  villages  would  have  been  wiped  out.  I  have  no  desire  to 
attempt  to  explain  how  the  deluge  might  have  taken  place;  nor 
where  it  took  place;  nor  even  to  attempt  to  prove  that  it  did  take 
place.  I  do  desire,  however,  to  show  that  under  exceptional  con¬ 
ditions,  a  great  inundation  could  have  occurred  in  certain  parts 
of  Amurru  with  rain  as  the  cause.  And  furthmore,  it  is  not  at  all 
improbable  that  the  seat  of  the  deluge  was  in  the  great  Central 
Asian  basin,  north  of  ^‘the  mountains  of  Ararat,’’  between  the 
Black  and  the  Caspian  seas.^^ 

The  study,  therefore,  of  the  versions  of  the  deluge  found  in  Baby¬ 
lonia,  shows  conclusively  that  although  that  land,  which  is  liable 
to  floods,  was  good  soil  for  deluge  stories,  the  recensions  found  there 
do  not  state  that  the  force  which  caused  the  deluge  was  the  flood¬ 
ing  of  the  rivers;  but  they  do  say  it  was  rain,  the  same  as  the 
Amorite  stories.  What  becomes  then  of  the  much-vaunted  Baby¬ 
lonian  coloring  which  has  been  used  hundreds  of  times  to  prove 
that  these  stories  originated  in  Babylonia?  And  recalling  that  the 
chief  argument  for  the  Babylonian  origin  of  the  story  is  based  on 
the  annual  inundations  caused  by  the  rise  of  the  rivers,  how  are 
Babylonists  and  Sumerists  going  to  explain  that  this  is  not  given 
as  the  cause  of  the  deluge  in  any  of  the  stories? 

Before  dismissing  this  discussion  I  cannot  help  recalling  and 
emphasizing  that  Egypt  in  the  Nile  Valley,  that  great  alluvium, 
where  life  also  depends  solely  on  the  flooding  of  the  rivers,  is  a 
notable  exception  among  ancient  nations  in  that  it  did  not  have  a 
deluge  story.  True,  the  floods  are  not  so  large,  and  are  better 
controlled  than  in  Babylonia;  but  whether  this  was  always  the 
case  is  a  question.  In  thinking,  therefore,  of  the  widely  heralded 
idea  that  Babylonia  was  such  good  soil  for  deluge  stories,  one 


A  theory  advanced  by  Mr.  Reginald  A.  Fessenden. 


160 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


cannot  help  asking  why  Egypt  should  be  such  a  notable  exception 
in  not  having  its  story. 

And  now  let  us  inquire  what  other  arguments  have  been  advanced 
for  the  Babylonian  origin  of  the  Hebrew  stories. 

One  writer  states  that  three  passages  in  the  Jehovistic''  narra¬ 
tive  ^^seem  to  imply  an  acquaintance  with  the  Babylonian  poem.’' 
One  of  these  is  the  statement  that  the  Lord  shut  the  door  of  the 
ark,  which  differs  from  the  Babylonian  account,  according  to 
which  Xisuthros  closed  it  himself.”  The  second  passage  is  con¬ 
cerning  the  sending  out  of  birds;  for  he  says,  ^Tt  is  clear  that  the 
Babylonian  version  is  older  than  the  Hebrew  record,  and  the 
position  of  the  raven  in  Genesis  seems  less  logical  than  in  the 
Babylonian.”  The  third  passage  refers  to  the  smelhng  of  a  sweet 
savor,  which  is  identical  in  both  the  Biblical  and  the  Babylonian; 
and  ^4t  is  impossible  not  to  believe  that  the  language  of  the  latter 
was  known  to  the  Biblical  writer.”^^  It  seems  to  me  that  there 
is  but  one  point  in  these  statements,  which  were  made  long  ago, 
that  need  be  discussed  at  the  present  time,  and  that  is  due  to  the 
Babylonian  version  being  older  than  the  accepted  date  of  the 
Hebrew  story.  This  is  discussed  in  what  follows. 

The  second  of  the  two  arguments  for  the  Babylonian  origin  of 
the  Biblical  deluge  story  which  have  been  effective  above  all  others, 
is  based  upon  the  fact  that  the  version,  now  in  the  Pierpont  Morgan 
Library  Collection,  is  dated  above  five  hundred  years  prior  to  the 
time  of  Moses.  The  Sumerian  epitome  recently  published,  as  we 
have  seen,  also  may  be  earlier  than  the  time  of  the  lawgiver.  It 
is,  therefore,  not  a  question  as  to  whether  the  Jehovist  writer  could 
have  borrowed  these  stories  from  Babylon  to  produce  his  narrative 
in  the  ninth  or  eighth  century  B.  C.,  and  the  Priestly  in  the  fifth 
century;  nor  even  whether  Moses  produced  these  stories  for  the 


Sayce,  The  Higher  Criticism  and  the  Monuments  118  f. 


VII.  THE  DELUGE  STORY. 


161 


first  time.  The  discovery  of  the  early  dated  tablet  answers  these 
questions.  But  the  question  is,  did  Syria,  which  was  surrounded 
by  the  advanced  cultures  of  Asia  Minor,  Crete,  Babylonia,  and 
Egypf?  have  a  civilization  of  its  own;  and  if  it  did,  then  did  the 
predecessors  of  Moses  and  the  patriarchs,  or  in  other  words,  the 
Amorites,  possess  or  know  these  stories? 

The  burden  of  my  entire  thesis  is  that  the  land  of  the  Amorites 
had  such  a  civilization.  The  answer  to  this  part  of  the  question 
is  found  in  the  sum  and  substance  of  these  researches.  Let  me, 
however,  refer  in  this  connection  to  several  points  not  previously 
discussed. 

While  certain  critics  have  regarded  it  as  impossible  that  these 
stories  were  as  early  as  Moses,  there  are  others  who  hold,  because 
of  their  primitive  simplicity,  and  also  archaic  character,  that 
Genesis  includes  that  which  belonged  to  a  great  antiquity.  The 
discovery  of  the  Amarna  letters  has  shown  conclusively  that  an 
advanced  civilization  existed  in  Palestine  in  the  time  of  Moses; 
and  the  recently  discovered  inscriptions  in  the  Sinaitic  peninsula 
at  Serabit  el-Khadim,  prove  that  alphabetic  writing  was  known 
to  the  Semites  before  the  time  of  Moses. There  are  also  other 
recent  discoveries  including  those  made  in  connection  with  the 
culture  of  Byblos  (see  Chapter  II),  which  put  the  whole  matter 
now  in  a  new  light. 

The  Hebrews  throughout  their  history  used  almost  entirely  a 
perishable  writing  material.  This  statement  does  not  need  any 
proof.  Papyrus,  skins,  and  potsherds  were  suitable  materials  for 
the  Semitic  alphabetic  script;  but  plastic  clay  was  not.  A  short 
rock  inscription  of  a  few  lines,  a  few  seals  and  ostraca,  are  nearly 
all  the  original  indigenous  evidence  we  have  of  the  literary  activity 

20  This  is  the  view  of  Petrie,  Gardiner,  Cowley,  Sayce,  Sethe,  Eisler,  and  Bauer. 
Schneider,  however,  takes  issue  with  these  scholars,  and  endeavors  to  show  that 
the  inscriptions  belong  to  a  later  period.  See  OLZ  1921,  242  ff. 


162 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


of  the  Hebrews.  The  Moabites,  the  Phoenicians,  and  the  Ara¬ 
maeans,  also  owing  to  climatic  conditions,  have  likewise  left  us  little 
evidence  of  their  literary  culture.  While  in  Egypt  considerable 
writings  on  papyrus  have  been  found,  in  Palestine  practically  every 
trace  of  such  has  disappeared. 

We  know  that  the  Hittites  had  their  individual  script,  but  they 
also  used  the  Babylonian  syllabary  in  writing  their  language,  as 
did  also  the  Mitanneans,  the  Vannic,  and  doubtless  also  many 
other  peoples  of  Western  Asia.  There  is  no  evidence  that  the 
Hebrews  or  other  branches  of  the  Western  Semites  used  this  syl¬ 
labary  for  their  language;  for  up  to  the  present,  not  a  single  cunei¬ 
form  tablet  written  in  pure  Hebrew  or  Aramaic  has  been  found. 
Knowing  what  a  highly  literary  people  the  Hebrews  were,  had  they 
used  the  Babylonian  syllabary,  we  would  unquestionably  have 
found  evidence  of  this  use  in  Palestine,  as  well  as  in  Babylonia, 
where  in  certain  periods  they  lived  in  large  numbers. 

A  very  good  explanation  can  be  offered  for  this  in  the  fact  that 
a  script  requiring  the  mastery  of  twenty-two  simple  characters 
was  somewhat  easier  to  learn  than  a  system  involving  hundreds  of 
complicated  cuneiform  signs,  nearly  all  of  which  having  at  the 
same  time  many  values.  This  fact  also  makes  it  easy  to  under¬ 
stand  how  Aramaic  in  time  supplanted  the  Babylonian  as  the 
inter-commercial  language. 

If  the  Egyptians  wrote  on  papyrus  as  early  as  3000  B.  C.,  it  would 
seem  that  a  land  whose  civilization  had  provided  Egypt  with  one 
of  its  prominent  deities  at  that  early  date,  and  had  sent  its  religion 
centuries  before  into  Babylonia,  also  had  its  means  of  communica¬ 
tion,  as  had  its  neighbors.  What  the  exact  character  of  their 
script  was  in  that  early  period,  is  a  question  on  which  we  have  at 
present  no  light. 

What  I  regard  as  Amorite  literature  in  Babylonia  has  been  Babylonized. 

22  On  the  script  used  in  early  Amurru,  see  also  see  Empire  of  the  Amorites  61  fiF. 


VII.  THE  DELUGE  STORY. 


163 


There  is  another  thought  to  which  I  desire  to  give  expression  in 
this  connection.  As  has  been  said,  we  have  not  a  scrap  of  evidence 
from  any  original  source  prior  to  the  time  of  Christ  to  show  that 
the  Old  Testament  actually  existed.  Fortunately,  however,  we 
have  the  remains  of  a  literature  from  Babylonia  covering  several 
millenniums,  which  illustrates  for  us  what  had  taken  place  at  the 
hands  of  redactors.  We  now  have,  for  example,  a  portion  of  a 
version  of  the  Gilgamesh  Epic  written  2000  B.  C.,  or  thirteen 
hundred  years  earlier  than  the  redaction  of  it,  which  had  been 
found  in  the  Library  of  Ashurbanipal.  The  study  of  the  two 
versions  enables  us  to  see  what  changes  had  taken  place  during 
these  centuries.  But  we  have  another  example  that  is  even  closer 
to  the  present  subject. 

A  recent  study  of  the  Morgan  Library  deluge  tablet,  written  in 
the  eleventh  year  of  Ammi-zaduga,  about  1966  B.  C.,  shows  that 
it  is  an  early  version  of  what  was  written  about  thirteen  hundred 
years  later,  namely,  a  redaction  of  a  portion  of  it.^^  The  study  of 
the  early  and  the  late  recensions,  shows  what  has  takdn  place  during 
the  intervening  centuries.  Moreover,  the  early  dated  version 
states  that  it  is  a  copy  of  a  still  earlier  document. 

Naturally  all  this  has  been  fully  surmised  by  scholars,  for  it  is 
exactly  what  should  have  been  expected.  Nevertheless,  what  has 
taken  place  in  the  handing  down  of  literature  in  Babylonia,  illus¬ 
trates  what  certainly  has  taken  place  also  in  Syria  and  Palestine, 
where  a  more  perishable  writing  material  was  used.  And  further, 
the  illustration  is  helpful  for  those  who,  finding  primitive  thought 
and  archaisms  in  Genesis,  realize  that  in  them  they  also  have  traces 
of  very  ancient  documents. 

In  searching  for  other  arguments  for  the  Babylonian  origin  of 
the  Biblical  stories,  I  find  the  following:  “The  Babylonian  home- 


23  A  Hebrew  Deluge  Story  11  ff. 


164 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


land  of  the  story  seems  certainly  to  be  indicated  by  the  mention 
of  two  kinds  of  bitumen  or  pitch  for  caulking  the  vessel,  Babylonia 
being  the  land  of  bitumen  par  excellence. Naturally  in  answer  to 
this  it  need  only  be  stated  that  the  city  Hit,  whence  the  asphalt 
came,  is  in  Amurru ;  and,  moreover,  vessels  caulked  with  bitumen, 
of  course,  went  westward  from  Hit  on  the  Euphrates  as  well  as 
eastward;  and  certainly,  knowledge  of  its  value  for  such  purposes 
would  have  reached  the  sea-faring  Phoenician. 

It  should  also  be  stated  that  the  late  Professor  King,  since 
Professor  Poebel  published  the  Sumerian  version  of  the  deluge, 
maintained  that  the  Hebrew  story  was  directly  influenced  by  the 
Sumerian.  One  of  his  reasons  was  that  both  refer  to  the  piety  of 
the  hero;  which  idea  does  not  appear  in  the  Gilgamesh  story. 
It  seems  to  me  that  this  simply  shows  the  two  stories  have  this 
thought  in  common. 

Another  and  similar  argument  is  that  the  Sumerian  tablet  con¬ 
tains,  like  the  Old  Testament,  an  account  of  the  creation  and  deluge 
on  the  same  tablet,  while  the  Gilgamesh  story  divorces  the  deluge 
from  the  creation.^®  This  cannot  be  regarded  as  very  weighty; 
for  there  were  other  Outlines  of  History written  at  that  time, 
as  there  are  at  present. 

Professor  King  also  held,  contrary  to  the  position  of  many  Baby- 
lonists  that  the  story  of  the  deluge  is  not  a  nature-myth,  but  a 
legend  that  had  a  basis  of  historical  fact  in  Southern  Babylonia. 
His  idea  is  that  the  boat  of  the  legend  was  nothing  more  than  the 
quffahy  the  familiar  coracle  of  Baghdad,  which  is  formed  of  wicker¬ 
work,  and  coated  with  bitumen.  These  crafts,  he  wrote,  ^^are 
often  large  enough  to  carry  five  or  six  horses  and  a  dozen  men.^^ 

**  Pinches,  The  Old  Testament  in  the  light  of  the  Historical  Records  of  Babylonia 
and  Assyria  p.  114. 

25  Schweich  Lectures,  1916,  92  ff. 

2®  Ibidem  p.  93. 


VII.  THE  DELUGE  STORY. 


165 


It  is  claimed  that  it  was  in  one  of  these  that  the  original  hero  saved 
himself  and  his  property;  and  landed,  after  the  waters  had  abated, 
not  in  a  mountain,  but  in  Southern  Babylonia. Naturally,  this 
is  simply  a  conjecture. 

As  further  proof  that  the  Sumerian  story  is  the  original,  besides 
the  argument  already  answered  above.  Professor  King  also  quoted 
the  use  of  the  Sumerian  term  md-gur-gur  for  the  “great  boat,” 
which  is  found  in  the  Babylonian  fragment I  cannot  follow  in 
this,  since  the  script  employed  by  the  Semites  in  Babylonia  was  of 
Sumerian  origin;  and  furthermore,  Semitic  Babylonian  texts  are 
full  of  such  words.  If  this  argument  obtained,  one  could  prove 
nearly  every  Semitic  Babylonian  inscription  to  be  of  Sumerian 
origin.  Yet  on  the  other  hand,  the  use,  for  example,  of  the  Baby¬ 
lonian  puhhru  “assembly,”  in  the  Sumerian  version,  instead  of 
the  Sumerian  word  ukkin,  is  a  weighty  argument  against  the 
Sumerian  origin  of  the  story.  Yes,  this  interesting  example  of 
Semitic  influence,  together  with  other  facts,  speaks  loudly  against 
the  view  that  this  Sumerian  epitome  is  indubitably  the  origin  of 
the  Semitic  version. 

The  argument  that  a  legend  originated  with  the  Sumerians 
because  it  is  found  in  the  Sumerian  language,  in  my  judgment  is 
no  more  final  than  it  would  be  to  say  that  the  work  of  Shakespeare 
was  of  German  origin,  because  a  copy  of  it,  written  in  the  German 
language,  was  found  in  Berlin.  In  certain  cities,  as  for  example 
Nippur,  where  the  Sumerian  epitome  was  found,  practically  every¬ 
thing  in  the  Hammurabi  period  was  written  in  Sumerian.  Votive 
inscriptions  written  in  Semitic,  at  an  earlier  period,  were  found  at 
Nippur;  but  these  were  presented  to  the  deity  of  that  city  by  kings 
ruling  in  Semitic  centres.  The  legends,  chronological  lists,  hymns, 
prayers,  contracts,  letters — practically  everything  is  written  in 

2^  Ibidem  80  ff. 

28  Ibidem  79  ff. 


166 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


Sumerian  in  that  period;  and  yet,  if  the  nomenclature  of  this 
period  is  examined,  it  will  be  found  that  about  two-thirds  of  the 
people  bore  names  that  prove  to  be  Semitic. And  it  is  also  to  be 
noted  that  many  of  the  names  written  in  Sumerian,  in  these  Sume¬ 
rian  documents,  can  also  be  read  as  Semitic;  for  example:  Lu- 
En-lil-la  can  also  be  read  Amel-Enlil;  and  since  the  children  of  this 
individual  bear  Semitic  names,  it  is  probably  correct  to  do  so. 
This  is  true  of  many  of  the  names  written  in  Sumerian.  There 
can  be  no  other  conclusion  but  that  while  the  language  of  Nippur 
was  Sumerian,  the  people  were  very  largely  Semitic.  An  examina¬ 
tion  of  the  thousands  of  tablets  that  have  come  from  Drehem  near 
Nippur,  which  were  written  in  the  III  Ur  dynasty  (2475-2357 
B.  C.),  also  reveals  an  analogous  situation,  although  every  docu¬ 
ment  is  written  in  Sumerian.  To  maintain,  therefore,  that  a  legend 
is  Sumerian  because  an  inscription  containing  it,  which  was  found 
at  Nippur,  was  written  in  that  language,  would  be  equivalent  to 
saying,  if  all  other  versions  of  the  Talmud  had  been  lost  except 
an  Enghsh  translation  preserved  in  the  Bodleian  Library,  that  it 
was  of  English  origin. 

I  have  in  the  above  paragraphs  given  and  answered  all  the 
arguments,  with  which  I  am  acquainted,  that  have  been  advanced 
for  the  Babylonian  origin  of  these  narratives.  Some  presented 
years  ago,  doubtless,  would  not  be  offered  to-day.  My  purpose 
in  presenting  even  these,  is  that  Biblical  students  may  know  upon 
what  basis  the  theory  has  rested. 

In  1909,  when  the  writer,  in  his  work  called  ^^Amurru  the  Home 
of  the  Northern  Semites,’^  in  abandoning  the  prevailing  theory 
concerning  the  origin  of  the  deluge  story,  took  the  position  that  it 
had  its  origin  in  Amurru,  he  showed  that  besides  many  facts, 
proving  that  the  Semites  had  carried  the  story  into  Babylonia,  the 

See  Poebel,  Babylonian  Legal  and  Business  Documents  {BE,  VI  2).  125  ff., 

and  Chiera,  Legal  and  Administrative  Documents  {UMBS,  VIII  1)  84  ff. 


VII.  THE  DELUGE  STORY. 


167 


name  of  the  pilot  of  the  ship  and  the  names  of  the  gods  were  Amo- 
rite.  This  evidence  based  on  the  study  of  names  was  then  regarded 
as  most  vital,  as  it  is  also  at  the  present  time. 

In  the  first  place,  the  hero  of  four  of  the  fragmentary  deluge 
versions,  as  preserved  in  Babylonia,  is  Atra-khasis,  written  also 
Atar-khasis,  and  in  the  Greek  version,  Xisuthros,  or  Khasis-Atra. 
In  one  of  these  four  versions  the  hero’s  epithet  is  also  given,  namely, 
Um-napishtim-ruqu,  meaning  ^The  day  of  life  is  extended.”  This 
is  reproduced  in  the  Sumerian  epitome,  Zi-u{d)-suddu,  which 
means  the  same.  This  is  an  appropriate  title  for  the  hero  Atra- 
khasis,  who  was  apotheosized.^®  Elsewhere  I  feel  I  have  satis¬ 
factorily  shown  that  the  Gilgamesh  story  does  not  contain  two 
different  names  of  the  hero.^^  Atra-khasis  is  unquestionably  his 
personal  name,  while  Um-napishtim-ruqu,  which  is  frequently 
abbreviated  Um-napishtim,  is  the  epithet  he  received  after  his 
successful  deluge  experience.  The  reason  scholars  have  failed  in 
their  efforts  to  explain  it,  is  because  they  have  regarded  it  as  a 
personal  name,  for  which  there  is  no  parallel. Let  us  now  inquire 
what  is  the  origin  of  the  name  Atra-khasis. 

Attempts  have  been  made  to  show  that  Atra-khasis  was  com¬ 
posed  of  two  words,  and  meant  ^‘most  holy,”  ^‘religious,”  ^^just 
and  perfect  man,”  ^^very  intelligent,”  ‘^open-minded,”  “very 

3°  I  previously  translated  the  title  Cm-napishtim  rHqu  “Um-napishtim,  the  dis¬ 
tant  one;’'  see  A  Hebrew  Deluge  Story  p.  72.  Langdon  has  read  it  as  a  name, 
Ut-napishti-[arik]  (JRAS  36,  p.  190  and  1923,  p.  259)  which  he  says  is  a  transla¬ 
tion  of  the  original  Sumerian  name  Zi-ud-suddu,  which  he  holds  Lucian  preserved 
in  Sisythes.  It  seems  this  represents  the  form  in  Berossus,  namely  Sisouthros. 
Albright  has  also  read  it  as  a  name,  “  Ut-napishti,  the  remote.”  {JAOS  38,  p.  60). 
It  would  seem  that  in  the  late  period,  when  the  Gilgamesh  Epic  was  written,  the 
significance  of  the  name  was  not  understood. 

A  Hebrew  Deluge  Story  p.  23. 

32  The  crude  reproduction  of  the  name  U-ta-na-ish-tim  (Meissner,  Mitteilungen 
der  Vorderasiatischen  Gesellschaft  1902  p.  13,  No.  1)  is  due  to  some  scribe’s  mis¬ 
understanding. 


168 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


wise/'  etc.  There  are  no  etymological  grounds  for  any  of  these 
guesses,  for  in  Assyrian  the  word  atru  means  abundant,  surplus, 
excess,"  etc.,  and  the  verb  khasasu  means  ^Ho  think,  to  remember, 
to  reflect,  to  be  mindful  of."  Atra-khasis,  although  used  in  these 
legends  as  an  epithet,  is  a  personal  name. 

There  are  two  passages  in  the  epics  where  the  name  is  used  as 
an  epithet,  apparently  for  ^^a  wise  man."  Adapa,  in  the  legend 
bearing  his  name,  is  called  ^Hhe  mighty  one,  the  Atra-khasis  of  the 
Anunnaki."  In  the  Etana  legend,  the  wise  young  eagle  is  called 
'Hhe  young  admu,  the  Atar-khasis."  In  both  passages  the  name 
stands  in  apposition,  and  is  not  written  grammatically  as  two 
words.  There  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  name  was  looked  upon 
in  these  epics  as  synonymous  with  the  idea  of  clever  one";  as  if 
we  would  call  a  man  ^^a  Noah";  but  it  was,  nevertheless,  under¬ 
stood  as  a  personal  name.  Moreover,  the  conclusive  proof  that  it 
is  a  personal  name  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  the  determina¬ 
tive  for  man  was  placed  before  it  in  the  early  version  of  the  deluge 
story.  The  name  obviously  means,  ^Hhe  god  Atar  is  mindful 
(of  the  child)." 

Names  compounded  with  that  of  the  god  Atar  and  Attar,  also 
written  Atra,  Atram,  with  and  without  the  determinative  for  god, 
are  numerous  among  the  Amorite  names  found  in  Babylonian 
inscriptions.  That  they  are  Amorite  is  proved  by  the  second 
elements  of  the  names,  as  (Atra)-idri,  -bi'di,  -gabri,  -suri,  -nhri, 
-khammu,  -kamu,  etc.  The  second  element  of  Atra-khasis  is  found 
in  the  name  Marduk-khasis,  time  of  Samsu-iluna.  In  the  late 
Assyrian  period  there  is  an  Amorite  named  Atar-khasis,  son  of 
Au-shezib,  from  Kannu,^^  which  city  is  mentioned  in  Ezekiel  27 : 23 
between  the  names  Haran  and  Eden.  It  is  needless  to  add  that 
Kannu  is  in  Amurru. 

33  See  Ungnad,  Vorderasiatische  Schriftdenkmdler  I  88:15,  and  page  X. 


VII.  THE  DELUGE  STOEY. 


169 


The  name  of  the  hero’s  father  is  given  in  the  Gilgamesh  story, 
Ubara-Tutu;  but  the  reading  is  uncertain.  He  is  said  to  have 
come  from  Shurippak.  In  the  antediluvian  kings’  list  of  Berossus, 
the  father  of  the  hero  hailed  from  Larak.  In  the  Berossus  story 
of  the  deluge,  the  hero  seems  to  be  identified  with  Sippar.  These 
facts  seem  to  point  to  there  being  a  number  of  local  variations  of 
the  tradition. 

The  only  other  personal  name  in  the  deluge  legends  is  that  of 
Buzur-Amurru,  the  name  of  the  “governor”  of  the  ship.  Some 
years  ago,  as  already  mentioned,  the  writer  discovered  that  the 
ideogram  used  for  the  second  element  of  the  name  Kur-Galj  meaning 
the  “great  mountain,”  was  to  be  read  Amurru.  This,  of  course, 
showed  that  the  name  of  the  pilot  contained  that  of  the  Amorite 
deity.  Although  every  translator  of  the  text  has  since  accepted 
this  reading,  two  efforts  have  been  made  to  show  that  it  is  incorrect. 
Both  attempts  endeavor  to  identify  the  sailor  named  Arad-Ea,  of 
the  time  of  Gilgamesh,  with  Buzur-Amurru,^^  the  governor  of  the 
ship  of  the  time  of  the  deluge. 

The  first  effort  in  opposition  to  my  explanation  of  the  name  was  made  by 
Professor  Hilprecht.  He  says,  “the  very  name  of  the  boatman  [i.  e.  Puzur-Amurru] 
which  is  Sumerian,  demands  a  Sumerian  original  for  the  Akkadian  versions  thus 
far  only  known  to  us”  (BE  Sers.  D.  V.  p.  41  note  5).  Following  is  his  proof  for 
this,  as  well  for  his  assertion  that  the  governor  and  the  boatman  are  identical. 
He  interprets  the  name  PU-zu-ur-^KUR-GAL,  as  being  another  form  of  Su-ur- 
Su-na-bu  or  Ur-shanabi.  Since  Pu=sir,  the  first  element,  is  either  Sirzur,  or  the 
zur  is  a  gloss  for  PU,  standing  also  for  sur,  the  name,  therefore,  should  be  written 
PU-^KUR-GAL,  and  read  Z(S)u-ur-^KUR-GAL.  And  since  the  sign  meaning 
40  =  ^Ea  =  sunabi  or  shanabi,  and  a  copyist  wrote  Ea  by  mistake  with  the  num¬ 
ber  50,  which  was  interpreted  as  “Enlil”  by  another  copyist,  who  now  chose 
another  ideogram  for  this  god,  namely  KUR-GAL,  when  the  name  was  rendered 
Z(S)ur-Shanabi  (Ibid.  p.  47  note  6).  I  will  leave  this  opposition  to  my  reading 
of  the  name  and  explanation  to  take  care  of  itself. 

The  second  effort  was  made  by  Professor  Langdon,  who  said  it  is  a  Semitic  trans¬ 
lation  of  the  name,  Ur-Enlil,  the  sailor.  He  says  “the  reading  Puzur-'^^^ Amurru, 
the  name  of  the  governor  of  the  ark,  is  certainl}’’  false,  for  kur-gal  became  a  title 
of  the  western  Adad  or  Amurru  only  in  the  late  period”  (Sumerian  Epic  of 


170 


THE  OEIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


It  scarcely  seems  reasonable  even  to  try  to  prove  that  these  two 
men  of  the  sea  are  identical,  and  especially  since  the  Gilgamesh 
Epic  refers  to  the  ferryman  Arad-Ea  as  living  in  the  hero’s  time, 
while  in  what  immediately  follows,  the  apotheosized  deluge  hero 
relates  how  in  a  previous  era  he  had  made  Buzur-Amurru  the 
governor  of  his  great  deluge-ship.  Furthermore,  we  are  not  in¬ 
formed  that  others  besides  the  hero  and  his  wife  became  immortals. 
Moreover,  it  is  hardly  possible,  even  if  we  do  not  apply  ‘Hhe  stric¬ 
tures  of  logic,”  for  anyone  to  show,  with  the  help  of  all  the  philo¬ 
logical  apparatus  that  is  possible,  that  these  two  widely  different 
names  of  the  same  text  represent  the  same  name. 

As  evidence  for  the  Amorite  origin  of  the  tradition,  these  two 
Amorite  personal  names  of  the  hero  and  the  pilot  are  most  significant. 
Supposing,  for  example,  these  two  names  were  Agamemnon  and 
Achilles,  and  there  was  no  other  definite  distinctive  coloring  in 
the  legend,  what  would  be  the  conclusion  of  scholars  concerning 
its  origin?  How  are  the  Babylonists  or  the  Sumerists  going  to 
explain  that  the  two  chief  characters  in  the  supposedly  Babylonian, 
or  Sumerian,  stories  bear  Amorite  names? 

Let  us  now  inquire  what  the  study  of  the  names  of  deities  shows 
as  regards  the  origin  of  the  narrative.  The  gods  mentioned  in  the 


Paradise,  p.  86).  I  am  sure  that  Langdon  will  abandon  this  when  he  examines 
the  Cassite  documents  published  by  Peiser,  in  which  the  deity  of  the  chief  con¬ 
tractor’s  name  is  written  MAR-TU,  KUR-GAL  and  Amurru;  cf.  Urkunden  aus 
der  Zeit  der  dritten  Babylonischen  Dynastic  p.  VII  and  X.  And  then  let  me  suggest 
that  the  well-known  family  name  Pir’-*^ Amurru  {KUR-GAL,  MAR-TU)  (see 
Tallqvist,  Ass.  Pers.  Names  p.  181),  of  the  Cassite  period,  written  pr  wr  in  an 
Aramaic  letter,  time  of  Ashurbanipal  (see  Lidzbarski  ZA  31,  196),  be  compared. 

The  element  Buzur  is  found  in  Buzur-Ashur,  the  name  of  a  king  of  Assyria, 
who  was  a  contemporary  of  Burna-Buriash,  and  is  also  found  in  several  names 
from  Nippur  in  the  same  era,  compounded  with  Adad,  Ishtar,  and  Marduk  (see 
Clay,  Personal  Names  of  the  Cassite  Period  p.  192).  The  element  is  apparently 
from  the  Amorite  root  meaning  ‘To  set  apart”;  and  the  name  probably  means 
something  like  “dedicated  to  the  god  Amurru.” 


VIT.  THE  DELUGE  STORY. 


171 


lines  quoted  above  from  the  Gilgamesh  Epic,  aie  all  Amorite.  No 
one  to-day  would  question  the  Amorite  origin  of  Adad.  In  Chapter 
II,  I  have  shown  that  Nabu  and  En-Urta  are  Amorite.  Elsewhere 
I  have  shown  that  Sharru,  Urra-gal,  and  Ea,  are  also  West  Semitic.^® 
The  same  is  true  of  Anu  in  the  legend,  who  was  originally  El. 

Nisaba,  in  the  part  of  the  early  tablet  referring  to  the  famine, 
is  a  goddess  of  fertility.  Such  a  deity  depicted  on  Babylonian 
seals,  is  also  generally  identified  as  this  goddess,  although  officially 
she  was  regarded  in  Babylonia  generally  as  the  patroness  of  writing. 
In  an  inscription  of  Gudea  she  appears  to  the  king  in  a  dream, 
holding  a  reed-stylus  and  a  tablet.  She  bestowed  wisdom  and  the 
gift  of  prophecy  upon  rulers.  She  is  also  the  one  ^^who  completes 
the  fifty  decrees.^’^®  In  another  inscription  she  is  the  great  scribe 
of  Anu.^®  Lugal-zaggisi  king  of  Erech,  about  2875  B.  C.,  calls 
himself  Priest  of  Ana,  the  prophet  of  Nisaba,  the  son  of  Usham, 
the  patesi  of  Umma,  the  prophet  of  Nisaba,’’  showing  that  these 
rulers  came  from  Umma,  a  city  dedicated  to  Nisaba,  and  the 
Amorite  god  Shara. 

In  the  syllabaries,  Nisaba  is  connected  with  the  deity  Khani. 
Then  we  recall  that  the  ancient  laws  found  in  the  Yale  Collection 
are  the  decrees  of  Nisaba  (the  goddess  who  wrote  decrees  for 
Gudea)  and  Khani.”  Now  Khani  is  unquestionably  an  Amorite 
deity.  Since  kh  in  cuneiform  reproduces  Khani  can  be  the 

same  as  Ani,  Ana  or  Anu.  Moreover,  in  the  light  of  these  and 
other  facts  that  might  be  presented,  there  can  be  no  doubt  but 
that  Nisaba  is  Amorite. 

There  is  another  god  mentioned  in  the  tablet  to  which  Ungnad 
has  called  attention;  namely,  Shullat.  Since  the  two  gods  of  the 
Gilgamesh  story,  Nabh  and  Sharru,  are  equated  with  Shullat  and 
Khanish  respectively,  Khanish  is  doubtless  also  to  be  supplied. 

Empire  of  the  Amorites  p.  184. 

36  See  Thureau-Dangin  RA,  7,  107  f,  and  also  Clay,  BUM,  4. 


172 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


Like  Nabu  and  Sharru,  these  seem  to  be  storm-gods,  and  are  West 
Semitic. 

The  Sumerian  epitomized  story,  written  at  Nippur,  has  in  it 
what  I  regard  as  being  comparatively  late.  The  principal  deities 
in  it  are  AN,  Enlil,  and  Ea,  besides  the  goddess  Nin-Kharsag. 
This,  in  my  judgment,  is  the  triad  and  goddess  which  supplanted 
the  early  gods:  El,  Ea,  Adad  ClM)y  and  Nisaba.  I  believe  they 
are  the  same  gods  in  a  Sumerian  dress.  Several  of  the  names  were 
certainly  epithets:  En-Lil  ^Tord  of  the  storm, Nin-Kharsag  ^Tady 
of  the  mountain,’^  and  Nin-Tu  ^Tady  of  bearing.’’  In  brief,  know¬ 
ing  that  the  text  is  an  epitome  of  the  fuller  story,  I  can  only  con¬ 
clude  that  the  Sumerian  translator,  in  using  the  names  AN,  Enlil, 
Ea,  and  Nin-kharsag,  has  given  the  corresponding  deities  from  his 
language  and  adopted  religion.  Shamash  and  Ininna  or  Ishtar, 
also  mentioned  in  this  text,  are  also  Amorite. 

What  is  contained  in  the  preceding  paragraph  reopens  at  least 
phases  of  a  question  which  scholars  have  previously  debated  for 
many  years.  For  this  and  other  reasons,  in  order  to  avoid  having 
the  issue  befogged,  I  prefer  that  it  be  not  regarded  as  proof  of  my 
contentions. 

Excluding  then  the  consideration  of  the  names  of  gods  in  the 
Sumerian  epitome,  let  me  assert  that  the  study  of  names  of  gods 
and  persons  found  in  the  Semitic  Babylonian  stories,  shows  that 
they  are  Amorite.  The  importance  of  the  study  of  names  in  such 
legends  has  already  been  discussed  briefly  in  Chapter  II.  In  short, 
it  seems  to  me  the  fact  that  the  names  of  the  hero,  the  governor” 
of  his  ship,  and  the  gods  are  not  only  Semitic  but  also  Amorite, 
should  in  itself  be  sufficient  proof  to  show  that  the  story  is  Amorite. 

If  my  contention  is  correct  that  the  deluge  legend,  as  handed 
down  by  the  Babylonians,  goes  back  to  an  Amorite  original,  we 
ought  to  find  linguistic  evidences  of  the  dialect  in  which  it  was 
originally  written,  as  well  as  traces  of  the  coloring  of  the  land  whence 


VII.  THE  DELUGE  STORY. 


173 


it  came;  unless,  as  in  the  case  of  the  creation  story,  it  had  been 
repeatedly  edited.  Naturally,  in  reproducing  the  legend  century 
after  century  it  was  quite  possible,  and  at  the  same  time  very  easy, 
for  the  Babylonian  scribe,  if  the  root  used  was  common  to  both 
dialects,  to  make  a  slight  alteration  in  the  form  in  order  to  make 
it  conform  grammatically  to  the  Babylonian ;  also  at  the  same  time 
to  replace  foreign  with  Babylonian  words;  and  even  introduce  a 
distinctive  local  coloring.  Fortunately  traces  of  this  process  are 
to  be  found  in  the  versions;  for  not  all  of  the  distinctive  marks  of 
the  Amorite  origin  of  the  story  have  been  obliterated. 

In  presenting  what  I  regard  as  linguistic  and  literary  evidence  of 
the  original  Amorite  text,  I  fully  expect  to  have  certain  scholars 
differ  with  me,  because  on  the  one  hand,  as  already  stated,  our 
viewpoints  are  likely  to  be  totally  different;  and  on  the  other  hand, 
it  will  be  possible  for  them  to  point  to  the  single  occurrence  of  a 
foreign  word  in  a  cuneiform  explanatory  list  of  rare  words,  or  even 
in  a  text  under  certain  conditions,  although  the  root  is  not  in 
use  in  Babylonian,  and  it  is  commonly  found  in  Hebrew. 

Let  us  first  direct  our  attention  to  the  early  version,  as  recently 
published  under  the  title  A  Hebrew  Deluge  Story  in  Cuneiform]  for 
as  would  be  expected,  it  contains  more  traces  of  Amorite  words 
than  the  late  redaction  of  it,  written  thirteen  hundred  years  later. 
The  fragment  is  part  of  the  second  tablet  (of  the  series),’^  called 
Inuma  Ilu  awilu  ^^When  El,  man,’’  being  the  first  three  words 
of  the  first  tablet  of  the  series.  We  shall  probably  later  on  find  the 
full  opening  sentence.  The  first  part  of  the  fragment,  i.  e.,  Column  I, 
refers  to  the  famine.  After  a  break  of  about  forty-seven  lines,  we 
find  ourselves  in  the  story  of  the  deluge.  As  in  the  Old  Testament, 
and  also  several  texts  found  at  Nippur,  the  series,  doubtless,  con¬ 
tained  an  outline  history  of  the  world.  Following  is  a  reproduction 
of  the  lines  which  contain  the  words  we  desire  to  consider  in  this 
connection. 


174 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


I  shall  bring  their  clamor  (?)  . . . .  ? 

The  land  had  become  extended;  the  people  had  multiplied. 

The  land  like  a  bull  had  become  satiated. 

[In]  their  assemblage  (khu-hu-ur)  El  (I-lu)  was  ahseiit{it-ta-akh-da-ar) . 

5  . heard  their  clamor. 

He  said  to  the  great  gods(?); 

The  clamor  of  men  has  become  grievous.^® 

From  their  assemblage  desolations  (shi-it-ta)  went  forth 
Let  the  fig  tree  (te-i-na)  for  the  people  be  [cut  off]. 

10  [In]  their  [bellies],  let  the  plant  become  scarce 

. the  sheep  (shu),  let  Adad  destroy(^^-s/la-ga-^^-^7). 

. .  .Injured  ....  let  not  fiow {[li]-il-U-ka). 

[That  the  flood  rise  not  at  the  sou]rce. 

Let  the  wind  blow. 

15  Let  it  dnve(U-e-ir-ri)  mightily ([na]-ag-6f-ra),®®* 

Let  the  clouds  be  held  hsick{U-im-ta-an-ni) ;  that 
[Rain  from  the  heavjens  pour  not  forth. 

Let  the  field  withhold  its  fertility. 

[Let  a  change  come  over]  the  bosom  of  Nisaba.’’®®^ 

(Forty-seven  lines  missing) 

Let . 

Let . 

3®  The  word  iq-ta-ab-ta  was  incorrectly  construed  in  my  previous  translation,  as 
promptly  observed  by  several  friends. 

2'^  Thompson  is  right  in  reading  u^amma,  but  shitta  “sleep^^  does  not  seem 
appropriate.  I  prefer  the  meaning  “desolations’^  (cf.  the  Hebrew  sheH),  if  it 
refers  to  what  follows,  or  the  meaning  “tumult”,  if  it  follows  the  thought  of  the 
preceding  line.  In  LuckenbilFs  translation,  “I  (?)  will  proclaim  a  dispersion  (?),” 
he  might  well  have  introduced  more  question  marks. 

My  previous  conjecture  for  li--zu  is  also  withdrawn.  Professor  Ungnad 
kindly  called  my  attention  to  the  occurrence  of  the  form  in  an  omen  text  which, 
although  I  had  read,  I  had  overlooked.  It  is,  therefore,  to  be  read  the  same  as 
li-me-su  in  the  redaction  (III :  43  see  Ibidem  p.  66) .  Attention  to  palaeography 
would  have  kept  Luckenbill  from  reading  U-sii^^ysu  “let  them  carry  off”  the 
plants  (see  Addenda). 

3®^  Luckenbill’s  question  as  to  whether  “Barth’s  law  holds  good  for  the  Amorite,” 
apparently  shows  that  he  does  not  know  that  similar  n  formations  occur  sporadi¬ 
cally  in  Aramaic,  including  Biblical  Aramaic,  and  according  to  the  best  authori¬ 
ties,  even  in  Biblical  Hebrew  (see  Ges.-Buhl  s.  v.  naftullm). 

s®'’  I  am  unable  to  understand  Luckenbill’s  improved  (?)  translation  of  IZi-m-’ 
ir-ta]  sha  Nisaba  “let  Nisaba  ( - vegetation)  be  restrained.” 


VII.  THE  DELUGE  STORY. 


175 


Let  him  destroy . 

70  On  the  morrow  let  him  cause  it 'to  V2im(Jii-sha-az-ni-in)  a  torrent(i6-6a-ra). 

Let  him  giYe{U-ish-ta-ar-ri-iq)  in  the  night . 

Let  him  cause  it  to  rain  a  tempest (7ia-as/i-[6a]).”^® 

Let  it  come  upon  the  field  like  a  thief ;  let  . . 

Which  Adad  had  created  in  the  city  .... 

75  They  cried  out  and  became  furious . 

They  sent  up  a  clamor . 

They  feared  not . 

A  striking  example  of  an  Amorite  word  in  this  version,  as  well  as 
in  the  late  redaction,  which  hitherto  no  scholar  made  any  attempt 
to  translate  except  in  one  instance,  is  khubur  assemblage’^  in  the 
fourth  line. 

This  interesting  word  has  already  been  discussed  in  connection 
with  the  title  of  Tiamat;  namely,  Ummu-khuhur,  see  Chapter  III. 
This  I  regard  as  weighty  proof  for  my  contention  that  the  legend 
is  Amorite. 

The  occurrence  of  the  deity  Ilu,  the  Amorite  El,  in  this  same 
line,  as  well  as  in  the  name  of  the  series  to  which  the  tablet  belonged, 
is  really  ^‘unusual,”  as  an  unsympathetic  reviewer  has  admitted; 
it  does  not,  however,  “contain  a  problem”;  it  solves  one.  Yes, 
it  is  so  unusual  and  remarkable  that  at  a  single  blow  it  makes  the 
contention  impossible  that  the  legend  goes  back  to  a  Sumerian 
original;  and  it  is  also  weighty  proof  in  showing  that  the  legend  is 
Amorite.  Furthermore,  El,  called  Kronos,  is  the  one  deity  men¬ 
tioned  in  the  Berossus  version,  who  appeared  to  the  hero  in  his 
sleep  and  apprised  him  of  the  impending  deluge. 

The  third  word  in  this  same  line  is  ittakhdarj  for  which,  in  the 
absence  of  anything  known  in  Babylonian,  my  colleague.  Professor 
Torrey,  has  suggested  that  the  root  is  the  West  Semitic  ’adar,  which 

If  na-ash-[ba[  is  correctly  restored,  it  would  also  seem  to  be  an  Amorite  word 
from  the  root  “to  blow,’’  although  it  is  found  in  the  Shurpu  texts.  See  Muss- 
Arnolt  Die.  p.  738. 


176 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


in  the  Nif'al,  means  be  absent,  lacking.’’  How  does  this  line 
appear  in  the  late  redaction? 

It  is  apparent  that  some  scribe  who  transmitted  the  legend  did 
not  understand  the  word,  ittakhdaVy  for,  in  his  paraphrase  of  the 
sentence,  he  used  a  Babylonian  word  which  resembles  it,  and  wrote 
^‘concerning  their  clamor  he  became  troubled  {ittadiTy  III :2).”  In 
the  eighth  line  shitta  “desolation,”  falling  together  with  the  Hebrew 
sheH  appears  to  be  an  Amorite  word.^^’ 

In  the  ninth  line,  the  passage,  “let  the  fig  tree  for  the  people  be 
cut  off,”  furnishes  a  most  striking,  and  at  the  same  time  conclusive 
proof  of  the  Amorite  origin  of  the  legend.  Here  the  word  for  “fig 
tree,”  te-i-na,  is  the  same  as  used  in  the  Old  Testament.  In  the 
late  redaction,  the  form  of  the  word  has  been  changed  and  made  to 
confonn  to  the  Babylonian  word  for  “fig  tree,”  namely  ti-ta. 

Scholars  have  heretofore  divided  the  words  differently,  and  read 
the  line  of  the  late  text  lip-par-sa-ma  a-na  ni-she  e-ti-ta.  In  all  the 
translations  known  to  the  writer,  the  last  word  has  been  left  un¬ 
translated  except  in  one  instance,  “la  plante  epineuse.”  “Thorny 
bush,”  however,  would  hardly  fit  the  context. 

When  I  found  that  the  line  in  the  early  version  reads  ni-shi  te-i-na y 
•it  became  perfectly  clear  that  the  words  in  the  late  redaction  had 
been  wrongly  divided,  and  that  e  belonged  to  ni-she-e  and  not  to 
the  following  word  ti-ta. 

We  are  told  that  in  the  Garden  of  Eden  Adam  and  Eve  made 
aprons  out  of  leaves  from  the  fig  tree.  The  people  of  Palestine,  we 
know  were  prosperous  “when  every  man  dwelt  under  his  vine  and 
fig  tree.”  Everywhere  in  the  Old  and  New  Testaments,  plenitude 
of  fruitful  vines  and  fig  trees  was  symbolical  of  prosperity.  When 
Israel  was  to  be  punished,  her  vines  and  her  fig  trees  were  to  be  laid 

In  the  late  paraphrase  the  word  nishitu  (III: 8),  replaces  shitta.  The  passage 
in  the  redaction  I  now  translate:  “He  said  in  their  assemblage,  the  desolations 
are  not  effective’'  (literally,  “have  not  taken  hold”). 


VII.  THE  DELUGE  STORY. 


177 


waste  or  smitten.'^^  In  short,  ^Hhe  fig  tree/’  which  flourished  in 
Ajnurru,  was  used  synonymously  with  the  idea  of  prosperity  in  the 
literature  of  the  land. 

In  ancient  Babylonia,  Herodotus  tells  us  there  was  no  fig  tree 
(I,  193).  This  slow-growing  tree  does  not  ordinarily  grow  in  an 
alluvium.  While  thousands  of  contract  tablets  refer  to  the  fruit 
of  the  date  palm,  traffic  in  figs  is  little  more  than  known. j  know 
of  no  other  literary  use  of  the  word  in  literature  handed  down  by 
the  Babylonians. 

The  point  is  so  crucial,  and  its  testimony  so  weighty,  that  it  was 
not  surprising  to  have  a  Babylonist  come  forward,  and  attempt  to 
dispose  of  it.  The  word  ti-ta  in  the  late  text.  Doctor  R.  C.  Thomp¬ 
son,  of  Oxford,  translates  ^Tood,”^^  creating  a  form  not  yet  found  in 
Babylonian;  and  then  he  raises  the  question,  on  the  basis  of  the 
photograph,  whether,  instead  of  reading  te-i-na  in  the  early  text, 
it  is  not  to  be  read  His  translation  of  the  phrase  is  ^Tet 

food  be  cut  off  from  men.”  The  following,  however,  will  show  the 
futility  of  his  effort. 

In  the  first  place,  if  the  word  ti-ta  or  the  supposed  te-i-ta{l)  meant 
^Tood,”  it  would  cover  what  is  embraced  in  the  two  lines  which 
follow,  namely  ^Hhe  vegetable,”  and  ^Hhe  sheep.”  In  this  well- 
written  literary  text  the  entire  sustenance  of  the  people  is  summed 
up  in  three  consecutive  lines,  in  which  the  subjects  are  the  fig  tree, 
the  plant,  and  the  sheep  (or  small  cattle)  why,  let  me  ask,  should 
the  writer  have  summed  up  these  under  the  term  ^Tood,”  and  then 
specify  by  giving  details? 

^^Jer.  5:17;  Hos.  2:12;  Amos  4:9. 

Even  this  is  on  the  supposition  that  Zimmern’s  restoration  of  Gish-Ma  =t[i-it-tu] 
(see  SAI  4837),  is  correct. 

See  The  Times  Literary  Supplement  Oct.  12,  1922  p.  646. 

**  The  text  is  unfortunately  injured  in  line  11.  Justification,  however,  for  read¬ 
ing  shu  “sheep,”  is  found  in  the  use  of  the  word  in  the  redaction  (see  III  49  and  59, 
Ibidem  p.  671. 


178 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


In  the  second  place,  while  there  is  a  word  written  te-u-u-tUj  and 
ti-u-u-iu  meaning  ^^food,’^  there  is  no  word  te-i-ta  or  ti-ta  in  Baby¬ 
lonian  with  that  meaning.  This  in  itself  should  be  sufficient  to 
prove  the  futility  of  the  effort. 

In  the  third  place,  even  were  the  reading  te-i-ta,  the  word,  although 
in  that  case  it  would  be  Babylonian,  would  mean,  according  to  our 
present  knowledge,  nothing  else  but  ^^fig  tree;’^  but  the  correct 
reading  of  the  text  is  te-i-na,  and  not  te-i-ta {?).  I  can  appreciate 
the  desire  on  the  part  of  one  who  admits  that  he  is  “a  little  preju¬ 
diced  against  linguistic  evidence  for  an  Amorite  origin, to  dis¬ 
count  this  very  crucial  proof  of  it;  but  he  will  have  to  try  again.^^ 

Te-i-na  in  the  early  version  is  unquestionably  the  Hebrew  te^end. 
Ti-ta,  which  replaces  it  in  the  late  redaction,  is  the  Assyrian  form  of 
this  word.'^®  If  no  other  example  of  an  Amorite  word  were  pre¬ 
served  in  the  text,  the  literary  use  of  this  one  would  speak  volumes 
as  regards  the  origin  of  the  tradition;  because  as  stated,  ^^the  fig 
tree’^  is  not  indigenous  in  alluvial  Babylonia,  and  because  it  is  a 
characteristic  metaphor  of  Hebrew  literature. 

The  word  lishaqtil  “let  destroy,”  in  the  eleventh  line,  was  com¬ 
pared  long  ago  by  Pere  Scheil  with  the  Hebrew  root  qatdlu ;  which  is 

Luckenbill,  who  seems  even  more  prejudiced,  also  reads  ta,  but  strange  to 
say,  in  his  aggressiveness  did  not  find  a  way  out  of  acknowledging  that  it  meant 
“fig  tree.”  There  are  reasons  why  Pere  Scheil  originally  added  a  question  mark 
after  his  reading  na.  In  the  first  place  the  word  nishi  “people,”  was  the  lone 
word  of  the  line  that  was  understood,  and  the  scribe  had  not  given  a  perfectly 
written  character,  as  he  apparently  had  started  to  write  the  Babylonian  form  of 
the  word,  but  after  all  he  wrote  na  upon  his  erasure,  thus  reproducing  the  original 
from  which  he  was  copying.  An  examination  of  all  the  examples  of  na  and  ta 
in  the  text  will  leave  no  question  in  the  minds  of  the  unbiased  as  to  the  character 
being  na.  For  this  and  other  apparent  purposes  I  have  given  the  same  but  en¬ 
larged  photographic  reproduction  of  na  in  the  Addenda,  followed  by  other 
undisputed  examples  (see  No.  4),  and  for  comparison  the  sign  ta  (No.  5). 

Te’end,  which  is  feminine,  in  Assyrian  would  be  written  te’entu—te'Utu=tettu 
or  tittu=tUu.  Both  tittu  and  tttu  have  been  found.  See  Muss-Arnolt  Assyrian 
Dictionary  p.  1179. 


VII.  THE  DELUGE  STORY. 


179 


not  found  in  Babylonian.  The  causative  in  Hebrew,  as  is  well 
known,  is  formed  with  ha  not  sha;  although  there  are  traces 
of  the  latter  in  Biblical  Hebrew,  but  the  Syriac  which  is  also  an 
Amorite  language,  forms  it  with  sha  as  well  as  with  ^a.  It  is  even 
found  in  the  Zakar  inscription,  as  Professor  Torrey  has  shown. 
The  s  instead  of  h  appears  also  in  the  Arabic  and  Ethiopic.  I 
mention  these  facts,  for  I  find  one  of  my  former  students,  after 
four  years’  instruction  in  Semitics,  to  my  great  chagrin,  asking  the 
question:  “Did  the  Amoiites  have  a  shafel?” 

The  word  shu  of  the  same  fine,  which  occurs  twice  in  the  late 
version  of  the  legend  (III  49  and  59),  is  the  Amorite  word  seh, 
meaning  “sheep,”  or  “small  cattle,”^^  which  also  was  not  in  current 
use  in  Babylonia.  Here  it  is  quite  possible  for  my  critics  to  say  that 
shu  is  already  in  the  Assyrian  dictionaries  as  having  been  found  in 
cuneiform.  Let  us  briefly  consider  this  anticipated  criticism. 

In  Babylonian,  the  word  §enu,  the  same  as  in  the  Hebrew,  mean¬ 
ing  “flock,  sheep,”  occurs  thousands  of  times  in  the  early  as  well 
as  the  late  period.  The  same  is  true  of  the  word  for  a  sheep,  which 
in  all  periods  is  immeru.  In  the  inscriptions  of  the  Assyrian  Sargon, 
however,  the  word  shu  “sheep”  or  “small  cattle,”  the  same  as  in 
Hebrew,  is  introduced.  But  when  we  recall  that  Sargon  tells  us 
in  his  reign  he  carried  27,290  of  Samaria’s  inhabitants  into  captivity, 
without  considering  the  fact  that  his  predecessor  Tiglathpileser  had 
also  taken  many  Israelite  captives  to  Assyria,  it  is  not  difficult  to 
understand  how  the  Hebrew  word  seh  for  “small  cattle”  that  were 
raised  by  the  Hebrew  slaves  for  the  Assyrians,  could  come  into 
use  in  that  period  in  Assyria. 

Besides  the  several  occurrences  of  the  word  in  the  inscriptions 
of  Sargon,  and  once  in  an  Assyrian  incantation  text,  where  it  is 
explained  by  immeru, no  other  reference  to  the  word  is  recorded 

See  Muss-Arnolt  Assyrian  Dictionary  p.  995. 

See  Zimmem  Beitrage  zur  Kenntnis  der  Babylonischen  Religion  p.  22. 


180 


THE  OKIGIN  OP  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


in  the  dictionaries.  In  other  Assyrian  inscriptions,  and  in  every 
Semitic  Babylonian  text  known  to  the  writer,  the  usual  words 
^enu  and  immerUj  are  found,  except  in  the  early  and  late  versions 
of  the  deluge  story  which  I  maintain  is  Amorite. 

Here,  it  seems  to  me,  the  non-Assyriologist  can  also  safely  reach 
his  own  conclusion.  Is  this  word  so  commonly  used  in  Hebrew  to 
be  regarded  as  Babylonian;  or  is  it  a  Hebrew  loan-word?  Does 
its  occurrence  in  this  legend,  written  1966  B.  C.,  twelve  centuries 
before  its  first  appearance  in  any  other  cuneiform  text,  as  recorded 
in  the  available  dictionaries,  have  any  significance  as  linguistic 
evidence  of  the  Amorite  origin  of  the  legend? 

The  twelfth  line  of  the  text  contains  the  word  khibish^^  meaning 
^Tnjured,’^  showing  either  that  a  previous  scribe  could  not  read  the 
text  from  which  he  copied,  or  the  tablet  had  actually  been  injured. 
At  the  end  of  the  fine  he  wrote  [li]-il-li-ka  “let  not  fiow.^^  Either 
he  or  some  previous  scribe  had  apparently  changed  the  verb,  which 
in  the  light  of  the  redaction,  it  seems  to  me,  should  have  been 
lissakiru  “let  be  stopped.’’  The  late  scribe  very  probably  had  before 
him  a  text  that  had  come  down  from  a  source  other  than  the  early 
one  which  we  now  possess,  for  he  wrote  lissakir^  which  seems  pre¬ 
ferable  to  “let  not  flow.”  The  word  Ussakir  “let  be  stopped ”  in  the 
late  text,  stands  without  a  subject;  and  the  scribe  has  not  repro¬ 
duced  the  word  khibish  in  it,  to  show  that  anything  is  wanting. 
Instead  he  has  reconstructed  the  line,  but  with  rather  poor  results. 
If  we  turn  to  Genesis,  we  can  supply  the  missing  subject,  not  only 
for  the  early  version,  in  the  place  which  is  occupied  by  the  word 
khibishy  “injured,”  but  also  in  the  fine  of  the  late  redaction,  where 

On  this  Luckenbill  writes:  ^‘it  is  evident  that  the  khibish  of  Professor  Clay 
and  others  is  a  misreading  of  the  remnants  of  shaplish.  And  so  another  argument 
for  making  this  text  a  copy  of  one  two  thousand  years  old  fades  away  into  thin 
air.’^  I  think  Luckenbill  would  have  changed  his  characteristic  style  at  this 
point  had  he  examined  the  photograph  published  by  Johns  {Cuneiform  Inscriptions 
p.  11)  and  the  copy  by  Pere  Scheil  {RA,  XX  p.  56)  before  the  tablet  was  injured. 


VTI.  THE  DELUGE  STORY. 


181 


the  subject  is  omitted.  The  words  apparently  are  ‘^springs  of  the 
deep,”  as  found  in  Gen.  7:11  and  8:2.  And  the  verb  obviously 
was  originally  lissakiru  in  the  cuneiform  text,  as  is  found  in  the 
late  redaction,  and  also  in  Genesis.  There  are  good  reasons,  if  this 
is  correct,  why  the  Babylonian  scribe  had  difficulty  with  the  words 
‘‘fountains  of  the  deep,”  for  springs  gushing  from  the  earth  are 
unknown  in  the  great  alluvium.  He  knew  that  if  a  famine  should 
ever  occur  in  Babylonia  it  would  be  because  the  inundations  failed 
to  materialize.  Unless  he  had  been  a  traveller,  he  had  never  seen 
the  clear  water  of  a  spring  coming  up  out  of  the  earth.  Even  the 
wells  of  the  land,  he  knew  almost  entirely  depended  upon  seepage 
from  the  rivers.  Here,  it  seems  to  me,  is  another  interesting  detail 
in  the  text  which  points  to  a  foreign  origin  of  the  legend.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  man  living  in  Amurru  knew  that  a  famine, 
to  which  this  part  of  the  legend  refers,  depended  upon  the  failure 
of  the  springs,  as  well  as  of  rain,  and  the  flooding  of  the  rivers. 

In  the  fifteenth  line,  the  word  li-e-ir-ri  “let  it  drive,”  is  not 
Babylonian,  but  is  from  a  very  conomon  Amorite  or  Hebrew  root, 
meaning  “to  throw,  hurl.”  In  this  line  [na]-ag-hi-raf  if  correctly 
restored,  also  seems  to  be  an  Amorite  word. 

The  word  limtanni  (line  16)  “be  held  back,”  is  Amorite,  from  a 
root  which  has  thus  far  not  been  recorded  as  occurring  in  the 
Babylonian  language.  In  the  Old  Testament,  mana"  “to  withhold, 
hold  back,”  is  a  very  common  root;  where  it  is  also  used  of  rain, 
Amos  4 : 7,  and  of  showers,  Jer.  3 : 3.  It  also  occurs  with  the  mean¬ 
ing  “to  withhold,”  in  one  of  the  Aramaic  inscriptions  found  at 
Senjirli.'^® 

The  late  scribe  has  omitted  nearly  all  the  Amorite  words  found 
in  the  early  text.  He  replaced  khuhur,  ittakhdarj  and  teina  with 
the  Babylonian  words  pukhur,  ittddir  and  tita]  and  also  Ilu  appar- 

Professor  Montgomery  has  kindly  called  my  attention  to  this. 


182 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


ently  by  another  deity,  which  is  unfortunately  wanting,  owing  to 
the  text  having  been  injured.  The  seven  lines  containing  the  foreign 
words  {n]aghiray  lierri,  limtanniy  and  Ushaqtily  he  replaced  by  two 
lines  containing  only  Babylonian  words,  which  read: 

Above,  let  Adad  make  his  rain  scarce; 

Below,  let  [subject  is  wanting]  be  stopped;  that  the  flood  rise 
not  at  the  source. 

Will  anyone  question  the  great  significance  of  this  fact? 

Sir  William  Willcocks,  in  one  of  his  recent  papers,  has  said  that 
Josephus  famine'  would  have  been  impossible  in  the  Tigris- 
Euphrates  delta.^^  As  far  as  I  know  Babylonian  history  does  not 
record  a  famine  as  having  taken  place  in  the  land.  Certainly,  for 
reasons  already  given,  it  is  true  that  famines  did  not  occur  through 
want  of  rain.  It  seems  to  me,  in  view  of  these  facts,  that  we  need 
only  recall  from  the  Old  Testament  what  a  factor  famines,  due  to 
the  failure  of  the  rain,  have  been  in  the  life  of  the  Semite  in  Syria, 
and  also  what  an  influence  climate  has  had  upon  the  hterature  of 
the  people,  to  realize  fully  that  we  have  in  this  element  that 
which  is  characteristically  Amorite,  and  not  Babylonian. 

There  are  other  Amorite  words  in  this  fragmentary  text  besides 
those  here  given;  but  unfortunately  the  remaining  lines  are  incom¬ 
plete;  and  conjectural  restoration  would  not  be  effective  in  this 
connection. 

In  these  lines,  as  well  as  in  what  follow,  there  are  words  which 
show  a  peculiarity  which  is  significant;  namely,  Ushaqtily  lishazniriy 
probably  limtanni  and  lishtarreqy  also  lisakhkhir  in  the  Gilgamesh 
story  (188).  Although  the  precative  with  the  Pa’el  and  Shafel 
is  occasionally  written  like  lishaznin  instead  of  lushazniuy  this 
seems  to  be  due  to  Amorite  influence.  The  precative  is  thus 
formed  in  Old  Aramaic  and  Arabic. 


See  Montgomery,  Yale  Review y  October,  1923. 


VII.  THE  DELUGE  STORY. 


183 


The  word  ib-ba-ra  I  have  heretofore  translated  mightily  and 
proposed  that  it  was  apparently  Amorite.  My  attention  has  since 
been  called  to  an  explanatory  list  of  obsolete  words  in  which  ib-ba-ra 
is  explained  as  being  equivalent  to  the  Babylonian  rihisti  Adad, 
^‘inundation  (or  cloudburst)  of  Adad.^’^^  words  ibbara  lishaznin 
in  the  early  version,  therefore,  mean  ^let  him  cause  it  to  rain  a 
torrent.’^ 

Here  is  another  interesting  confirmation  of  my  contentions.  This 
foreign  word  ibbara,  which  is  Amorite,  is  found  in  an  explanatory 
text,  where  its  equivalent  which  is  commonly  found  in  cuneiform, 
is  given.  Naturally,  some  will  very  probably  maintain  that,  since 
this  obsolete  word  ibbara  is  explained  in  a  Babylonian  dictionary, 
it  is  Babylonian.  It  is  also,  at  least,  possible  to  assert  that  every 
loan  word  explained  in  our  English  dictionaries  is  English.  In 
time,  probably  all  such  words  from  adopted  legends  may  be  found 
in  dictionaries;  but  this  fact  will  not  make  them  Babylonian. 

It  seems  to  me  that  the  only  reasonable  conclusion  that  the 
unbiased  and  unprejudiced  can  make,  after  considering  these 
Amorite  words,  the  grammatical  peculiarities  contained  in  the  few 
lines  of  this  fragment,  the  reconstructed  and  paraphrased  sentences 
of  the  late  version,  as  well  as  the  literary  evidence,  above  referred 
to,  is  that  the  legend  had  been  brought  from  Amurru  by  the  invading 
Semite.  Since  we  know  that  before  the  scribe  had  copied  the  early 
text  the  Amorites  had  been  ruling  the  country  for  several  centuries. 


The  line  reads  ilm  ib-ba-ra  =  Hm  ri-hhi-is-ti  ^Adad,  see  Cuneiform  Texts  18, 
23:16.  Professor  Ungnad  of  Breslau  kindly  called  my  attention  to  the  formula. 
The  equation  shows  that  the  root  is  'abaru,  ‘‘to  pass  over,  overflow,  overwhelm.” 
There  is  a  common  Hebrew  word  'ebra,  meaning  “overflow,  outburst.”  My 
colleague,  Professor  Torrey,  calls  my  attention  to  the  use  of  this  root  in  Hebrew  in 
connection  with  “water,”  Is.  8:8,  etc.,  construed  with  'al,  Is.  54:9  (Noah’s  flood), 
etc.,  with  rain,  Hab.  3:10,  etc.  LuckenbilFs  knowledge  of  palaeography  has 
led  him  to  read  dibbara  “pestilence”  instead  of  ibbara.  I  think  what  is  found 
in  the  Addenda  will  set  him  right  on  this. 


184 


THE  OKIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


and  that  the  nomenclature  of  the  era  is  full  of  Amorite  personal 
names,  it  certainly  does  not  require  a  stretch  of  the  imagination  to 
appreciate  that  this  is  the  origin  of  the  legend. 

Five  centuries  later,  when  the  Cassites  ruled  the  land,  these 
Amorite  names  had  generally  disappeared;  and  there  is  little  evi¬ 
dence  of  the  Amorite  words  that  had  been  introduced  in  the  previous 
era.  It  is  not  difficult  to  understand,  therefore,  how,  in  the  dozen 
centuries  which  followed  the  age  of  Hammurabi,  when  there  is  no 
evidence  that  Amorite  migrations  took  place,  these  legends  suffered 
many  changes  at  the  hands  of  redactors,  when  foreign  elements 
that  had  been  previously  retained,  were  eliminated;  or  by  a  slight 
change,  the  Amorite  word  was  transformed  into  a  good  Babylonian 
word. 

It  must  be  conceded  as  remarkable,  therefore,  that  in  spite  of  the 
fact,  as  we  have  seen  above,  that  scribes  replaced  Amorite  words 
with  Babylonian,  there  are  traces  of  not  a  few  Amorite  words  to  be 
found  in  the  redaction  written  thirteen  hundred  years  later.  We 
also  find  that  a  number  of  the  foreign  words  which  have  been 
retained  are  glossed.  In  addition  to  khubur,  already  noted,  which 
is  glossed  by  pukhru  in  the  late  version,  and  also  the  word  shu,  let  it 
suffice  to  call  attention  here  to  the  following  from  the  translation 
published  in  A  Hebrew  Deluge  Story.  In  the  late  redaction  these 
two  lines  occur  (1:36  and  37) : 

When  the  sixth  year  arrives,  they  prepare  the  daughter  for  a  meal; 

For  morsels  (ana  patte)  they  prepare  the  child . 

The  words  ana  patte  have  been  translated  ^^aussitot,’^  ^Tiir  Zeh- 
rung(?),’^  and  ^Tor  food(?).’^  But  these  are  only  guesses,  for  there 
is  no  Babylonian  word  having  such  meanings.  By  considering  it 
to  be  the  Hebrew  word  pat^  ^^morsel,^^  and  translating  the  passage 
as  above,  we  have  perfect  sense.  Moreover,  since  the  text  is  not 
written  in  parallelismus  membroruniy  we  can  only  conclude  that 


Vir.  THE  DELUGE  STORY. 


185 


the  first  line  is  a  gloss  to  explain  the  second,  containing  the  foreign 
word. 

In  line  11:55,  56,  we  have  the  passage  which  has  been  usually 
translated: 

[He  speaks]  with  his  god, 

Ea,  his  lord,  speaks  not(Za-s/iw)  with  him{itti-shu) 

The  parallel  passage  (111:19,  20)  reads: 

He  speaks  with  his  god, 

Ea,  bis  lord,  speaks  with  him. 

All  scholars  have  read  la-shu  in  the  former  passage  as  a  negative 
particle,  although  such  a  particle  is  unknown.  One  scholar  changed 
the  text  and  made  it  read  la-a  ^‘not.’^  Two  of  the  translators, 
appreciating  the  difficulty  of  such  a  translation,  for  the  context 
does  not  require  the  negative,  added  a  question  mark.  There  can 
be  httle  question  but  that  itti-shu  with  him’^  in  the  former  passage, 
is  a  gloss  explaining  the  meaning  of  la-shu,  which  is  the  Amorite 
inseparable  preposition  with  the  pronominal  suffix,  meaning  ^Ho 
him.^’  In  the  parallel  passage,  la-shu  is  omitted.  This  is  the  third 
gloss  referred  to  in  the  late  redaction. 

In  1:43,  ma,  at  the  beginning  of  the  line,  is  left  by  all  translators 
wholly  unaccounted  for.  Since  the  Babylonian  m  reproduced  the 
Hebrew  w,  the  explanation  must  be  that  ma  is  here  the  Hebrew  waw 
conjunctive,  meaning  ^^and.’^ 

The  words  shu-u  ia  i--ru  (111:49),  have  been  translated  ^‘Korn 
nicht. .  .ess!’^  ^^qu’elle  ne  germe  pas!’^  ^^Getreide  nicht  kom- 
men  (?) !”,  and  “lambs  shall  not  fatten.’’  There  can  be  no  question 
but  that  the  words  mean:  “that  sheep  become  not  pregnant.” 
The  word  shu,  which  we  have  discussed  above,  is  the  Hebrew  seh, 
here  used  as  in  the  Old  Testament. 

I  have  elsewhere  called  attention  to  a  few  other  examples  of 
words  found  in  this  text,  which  I  hold  are  Amorite  in  spite  of  the 


186 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


fact  that  they  occur  once  or  twice  in  the  cuneiform  literature  be¬ 
sides  these  legends.^*  I  shall  omit  them  here,  since  Babylonists, 
whose  viewpoint  is  totally  different  from  mine,  can  point  to  these 
and  refuse  to  acknowledge  that  they  are  foreign. 

Let  us  now  inquire  whether  any  traces  of  the  original  Amorite 
version  can  be  found  in  the  Gilgamesh  story  of  the  deluge. 

We  have  already  called  attention  to  such  forms  as  li^akhkhir 
(188,  etc.)  instead  of  lu§akhkhir,  containing  the  Aramaic  precative. 
Qiru  (66)  has  been  translated  ^^Innerraum,’^  ^4’interieur,’^ 
'^Schmelzofen  (?)^^  and  ‘^outside  (?).^’  There  is  no  Babylonian 
word  known  to  justify  these  guesses;  but  in  Hebrew  we  have  qir 
^^wall,’^  which  makes  excellent  sense  for  the  passage. 

In  line  133,  one  text  reads:  ta-ma-ta  ^^sea,^^  but  the  variant  text 
reads  u-muy  which  has  been  translated  as  usual,  ^^day.^^  The 
passage  would  then  read:  looked  out  upon  the  sea  (variant 

^^day’’);  the  voice  was  silent.’^  The  contexts  would  seem  to  show 
that  the  meaning  ^'sea^^  is  preferable  to  ^‘day.’^  The  common 
Babylonian  word  Hmu  ^^day’^  represents  the  Hebrew  ydm  ^^day,’^ 
but  it  here  unquestionably  represents  the  Hebrew  ydm  ‘^sea.^^ 
This  obviously  is  the  correct  meaning  of  the  word;  and  it  is  Amorite, 
for  ydm  “sea^^  is  unknown  in  Babylonian.  In  other  words  both 
tdmata  and  umu  mean  ^^sea.^^ 

The  word  pikhu  governor’^  is  another  Amorite  word.  It  is 
commonly  used  in  the  Old  Testament,  and  in  Biblical  and  old 
Aramaic.  It  is  not  found  in  current  use  in  Babylonia.  The  Baby¬ 
lonian  words  for  governor’^  are  pakhdti  and  hel  pakhdti.  Besides 
our  passage  in  the  deluge  story  with  pikhu,  there  is  one  occurrence 
known  to  the  writer  of  this  word  in  cuneiform;  it  is  in  a  contract 
tablet. Now  because  in  the  five  thousand,  more  or  less,  contract 
tablets  which  are  now  known,  many  of  which  refer  to  boats,  there 

^2  See  A  Hebrew  Deluge  Story  in  Cuneiform. 

Strassmaier,  Inschriften  von  Nabonidus  180:1. 


VII.  THE  DELUGE  STORY. 


187 


occurs  in  the  record  of  a  payment  dated  in  the  reign  of  Nabonidus, 
the  passage:  one-half  shekel  of  silver  for  the  governor  of  the 
ship^^  {hi-khi-e  sha  elippi),  and  knowing  that  ships  as  now  some¬ 
times  sailed  from  one  land  to  another,  and  also  that  Nebuchad¬ 
nezzar  had  previously  filled  the  land  with  thousands  of  Jewish 
captives,  shall  we  regard  this  bikhu  or  pikhu  as  a  Babylonian,  or 
as  an  Amorite  word?^^ 

The  word  kha-aja-al-ti  (131),  which  is  not  Babylonian,  has  in 
previous  years  been  compared  with  the  Hebrew.  The  words  la-an 
(60),  su-us-su-ul-lu  (68),  u-pa-az-zi-ru  (70),  na-a-shi  (142),  I  main¬ 
tain  are  also  Amorite,  see  A  Hebrew  Deluge  Story. 

There  are  other  Amorite  words  in  this  text;  but  these  suffice  to 
show  that  in  this  legend  from  the  West,  even  as  late  as  the 
Assyrian  period,  hnguistic  evidence  is  still  to  be  found  to  prove  its 
origin. 

In  summarizing  the  results  of  our  study  of  the  versions  of  the 
deluge  story,  as  handed  down  by  the  Babylonians,  we  find  that  the 
famine  story  is  not  Babylonian,  but  that  it  could  have  had  its  origin 
in  Amurru;  ^that  the  force  in  nature  responsible  for  the  deluge  is 
not  Babylonian,  but  it  is  true  to  Amorite  coloring;  that  the  refer¬ 
ence  to  mountains  and  other  literary  details,  as  the  fig  tree,  are  not 
Babylonian,  but  are  true  to  Amorite  scenery;  that  the  gods  which 
brought  on  the  deluge  are  not  Babylonian,  but  are  Amorite;  that 
the  names  of  the  hero,  and  his  pilot,  are  not  Babylonian,  but  are 
Amorite ;  and  that  there  is  much  Amorite  linguistic  evidence  found 
in  the  different  versions. 

And  having  shown  the  overwhelming  influence  of  Amurru,  leav¬ 
ing  out  of  consideration  the  Sumerian  names  of  deities,  as  we  do 

that  of  Yahweh  in  the  Hebrew  tradition,  let  us  ask  what  are  the  dis¬ 
u¬ 
se  In  view  of  these  facts  it  appears  somewhat  surprising  that  scholars  should 
have  regarded  the  Hebrew  pekhah  as  a  loan  word  from  Babylonia.  See  Brown, 
Hebrew  Lexicon  p.  808;  Zimmern,  Akkadische  Fremdworter  p.  6,  etc. 


188 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


tinctive  Babylonian  features  in  the  Babylonian  versions?  I  know 
of  nothing  that  is  distinctively  Babylonian — ^nothing. 

Now  let  us  make  a  similar  inquiry  with  reference  to  the  versions 
handed  down  by  those  living  in  Amurru,  the  Hebrews  and  the 
Greeks.  The  famine  story,  the  force  in  nature  which  caused  the 
deluge,  the  name  of  the  hero,  Noah,  the  mountains,  the  olive 
branch — these  are  not  Babylonian,  but  can  be  Amorite.  The  words 
mahhul  ^^flood,^’  and  tehah  ^^ark’^  are  not  Babylonian.  There  is 
also  nothing  in  the  Greek  version  that  is  Babylonian.  How  are 
the  Babylonists  and  the  Sumerists  going  to  explain  these  facts? 
And  let  me  finally  ask,  will  they  continue  to  pubhsh  the  baseless 
theory  of  the  Babylonian  origin  of  these  versions  for  consumption 
by  the  Biblical  student  and  the  student  of  general  history? 


VIII 


THE  TOWER  OF  BABEL 

The  Genesis  story  of  the  Tower  of  Babel,  need  not  long  detain 
us.  Like  the  reference  to  Nimrod,  an  early  emperor  of  Babylonia, 
it  naturally  deals  with  what  is  Babylonian.  The  light  thrown  upon 
the  story  of  Babel  by  exploration  and  research,  is  well  known;  and 
need  not  be  enlarged  upon  here.  Suffice  it  to  say,  that  one  pf  the 
reasons  why  the  Biblical  writer  made  use  of  the  story  was  to  refer 
to  the  fact  that  people  from  his  land  journeyed  eastward  into  the 
alluvium,  for  he  tells  us  that  they  found  a  plain  in  the  land  of 
Shinar,  and  dwelt  there. 

These  settlers,  having  come  from  Amurru,  called  the  name  of 
their  city  after  their  own  god,  Bab-El.  Their  temple  they  called 
Esagila  “House  {E)  with  a  lofty  (^7a)  head  {sag).^^  Their  tower 
they  called  E-temen-an-ki  “house  {E)  of  the  foundation  {temen) 
of  heaven  (an)  and  earth  (ki)”  As  is  well  known,  many  other 
temple-names  of  Babylonia  also  refer  to  the  heavens.  Naturally, 
the  names  of  these  famous  towers  in  Babylonia,  and  the  idea 
expressed  by  them,  namely,  that  they  were  intended  to  reach  into 
the  realm  of  heaven,  an  idea  probably  connected  with  all  high  places 
in  the  West,  were,  doubtless,  known  to  intelligent  people  of  the 
West.  They  probably  even  also  knew  of  inscriptions  referring  to 
their  reconstruction.  If  in  Europe  and  America,  museums  now 
have  not  a  few  original  inscriptions  concerning  the  Tower  of  Babel, 
in  which  are  found  an  expression  almost  identical  with  that  of 
Genesis,  namely,  that  they  built  up  its  head  reaching  into  the 
heavens,  it  is  quite  probable  that  this  conception  was  also  well 
known  at  the  time  to  the  intelligent  ancient  of  the  Near  East. 
Doubtless,  also  the  fact  that  they  had  in  mind  making  a  name  for 

(189) 


190 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


themselves,  which  is  also  expressed  in  the  inscriptions  with  which 
we  ourselves  are  familiar,  was  also  known  to  them.  And  naturally 
the  fact  that  the  Babylonians  had  to  depend  largely  upon  brick 
for  this  building  material,  instead  of  stone,  and  bitumen  instead 
of  mortar,  was  also  very  fully  appreciated. 

Having  in  mind  the  comparatively  close  connections  between 
Babylonia  and  Canaan,  there  should  be  no  occasion  for  any  differ¬ 
ence  in  views  concerning  the  origin  of  the  Biblical  story  of  Babel. 
The  story  in  Genesis  is  the  story  of  a  foreigner,  not  of  a  Babylonian. 
His  interpretation  of  the  facts  which  he  uses,  clearly  indicates  this. 
The  story  may  even  have  been  occasioned  by  the  sight  of  the  tower 
in  a  period  when  it  had  been  allowed  to  fall  into  decay,  for  we  have 
references  in  the  inscriptions  to  this  having  occurred.  Knowledge 
of  such  a  condition,  however,  was  not  gained  when  the  Hebrews 
lived  in  captivity;  for  at  that  time  Babel  was  at  its  height. 

The  Biblical  writer,  doubtless,  was  also  well  acquainted  with  the 
fact  that  Babylon  was  a  great  metropolis  of  many  tongues,  espe¬ 
cially  in  the  period  following  its  ascendency  in  the  reign  of  Hammu¬ 
rabi.  That  it  was  the  chief  city  of  the  land,  following  this  period, 
was  of  course  well  known.  Geographically,  Babylon  was  built  in 
a  strategic  position.  There  was  always  a  great  city  or  emporium 
in  the  vicinity — Kish,  and  Akkad  before  the  days  of  Babylon; 
Seleucia,  Ctesiphon,  and  Baghdad  following  its  decay;  which  fact 
can  easily  be  understood,  for  the  trade  routes  between  India,  Persia, 
Assyria,  and  the  West,  owing  to  the  position  of  the  deserts,  naturally 
passed  through  this  part  of  the  country.  In  short,  the  fact  that 
so  many  languages  were  represented  in  Babylon,  as  is  the  case  in 
Baghdad  at  present,  was  doubtless  known  to  the  Biblical  writer, 
and  was  made  use  of  in  writing  the  story. 


APPENDIX 


A.  THE  AMORITE  STORY  OF  CREATION  (ENUMA  ELISH)i 

FIRST  TABLET 

When  above  the  heavens  were  not  named, 

Below  the  earth  was  not  called  by  name, 

Apsu,  the  primeval,  was  their  progenitor, 

Mummu-Tiamat  was  the  bearer  of  all  of  them, 

5  Their  waters  had  been  gathered  together  (embraced  each  other). 

Dry  ground  was  not  formed,  grass  was  not  seen, 

When  the  gods,  not  one  had  been  fashioned, 

A  name  was  not  called,  destinies  were  not  fixed, 

(Then)  were  created  the  gods  in  their  midst. 

10  Lakhmu  and  Lakhamu  were  fashioned,  were  called  by  name. 

As  they  grew,  they  became  lofty. 

Anshar  and  Kishar  were  created ;  they  surpassed  them. 

Long  were  the  days,  years  were  added. 

Anu,  their  son,  (became)  a  rival  of  his  fathers. 

15  Anshar  made  Anu,  his  firstborn,  an  equal. 

Then  Anu  in  his  likeness  brought  forth  Ea. 

Ea,  who  became  the  ruler  of  his  fathers, 

^  Parts  of  the  text  were  published  by  Smith,  TSBA  4,  364  ff,  and  Delitzsch, 
Ass.  Les.^  93  f;  Bezold,  Catalogue  p.  716;  Pinches,  Bah.  and  Or.  Record  1890;  King 
CT  13;  and  Seven  Tablets  of  Creation;  Ebeling,  Keilschrifttexte  aus  Assur,  Religiosen 
Inhalts.  Transliterations  and  translations  appeared  from  the  time  of  Smith  by 
the  above,  including  Sayce,  Higher  Criticism  63  ff;  Jensen,  Kosmologie  268  fi,  320  ff, 
and  KB  VI  1  2ff;  Zimmern  in  Gunkel,  Schopfung  und  Chaos;  Delitzsch,  Das 
Babylonische  Weltschopfungsepos;  Bezold,  Die  Schopfung slegende;  Jeremias,  Das 
Alte  Testament  im  Lichte  des  alten  Orients;  Dhorme,  Choix  de  Textes  Religieux 
Assyro-Babyloniens;  Jastrow,  The  Religion  of  Babylonia  and  Assyria  407  ff ;  see  also 
the  German  edition,  and  Ancient  Hebrew  Traditions;  Clay,  Light  on  the  Old 
Testament  from  Babel;  Rogers,  The  Religion  of  Babylonia  and  Assyria,  a'nd  Cunei¬ 
form  Parallels;  Budge,  The  Babylonian  Legends  of  the  Creation;  Ungnad,  Altoriental- 
ische  Texte  und  Bilder,  and  Die  Religion  der  Babylonier  und  Assyrer;  Landsberger 
in  Lehmann,  Texthuch  zur  Religionsgeschichte  Luckenbill,  AJSL  38,  12  ff; 

Ebeling,  Das  Babylonische  Weltschopfungslied,  etc. 

(191) 


192 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


FIRST  TABLET  (Continued) 

Intelligent,  thoughtful,  mighty  in  strength. 

Stronger  by  far  than  the  begettor,  his  father,  Anshar, 

20  He  had  no  equal  among  the  gods  his  fathers. 

(Thus)  there  came  to  exist  the  brotherhood  of  the  gods. 

They  perturb  Tiamat;  they  are  satiated  (?)  with  their . 

They  disturb  the  soul  of  Tiamat 

With  horrible  things  in  the  heavenly  dwelling. 

25  Apsu  could  not  quell  their  clamor; 

And  Tiamat  was  miserable  because  of  their  [conduct]. 

Their  deeds  were  vexatious  unto  them; 

Their  conduct  was  not  good;  they  made  themselves  masters(?). 
Then  Apsu,  the  begettor  of  the  great  gods, 

30  Called  Mununu,  his  messenger,  saying  to  him : 

“Mummu,  my  messenger,  who  rejoiceth  my  heart. 

Come,  to  Tiamat  let  us  go.'^ 

They  went,  and  before  Tiamat  they  reclined. 

They  discussed  the  matter  concerning  the  gods  their  firstborn. 

35  Apsu  opened  his  mouth,  addressing  her; 

To  Tiamat,  the  glistening  one,  he  said  to  her: 

Their  conduct  is  [disjtressing  unto  me; 

By  day,  I  cannot  repose;  by  night  I  cannot  rest. 

I  will  destroy,  I  will  ruin  their  course 
40  That  there  be  silence,  and  that  we  may  rest.^^ 

When  Tiamat  heard  this. 

She  was  angry,  and  she  cried  out  to  her  consort, 

. sorrowful;  she  alone  was  irritated. 

She  took  the  evil  thing  to  her  heart. 

45  “[Wha]t,  shall  we  destroy  what  we  have  created? 

Their  conduct  truly  is  vexatious;  yet  we  will  act  graciously.'^ 
Mununu  having  retorted,  counselling  Apsu, 

Unfavorable  [advice],  was  the  advice  of  Mum[mu]. 

“Come  let  the  troublesome  conduct  be  overcome, 

50  That  by  day  thou  may'st  have  repose,  by  night  have  rest." 

'  When  Apsu  [heard]  this,  his  countenance  grew  bright 

[Because]  of  the  evil-deed  he  planned  against  the  gods,  his  children. 
Mummu  became  faint  in  his  head. 

He  sat  down,  his  knees  shaking  violently. 

55  Everything  which  they  had  planned  in  their  assembly 


APPENDICES. 


193 


FIRST  TABLET  (Continued) 

Against  the  gods,  their  firstborn  was  repeated. 

The  gods  hearkened;  they  became  confused; 

They  were  silent;  they  sat  motionless. 

The  prodigious  one,  the  prudent,  the  wise  one, 

60  Ea,  who  perceives  everything,  saw  their  plot. 

He  reproduced  it;  he  determined  the  plan  (picture)  of  the  whole  thing. 
He  devised  cunningly  his  holy  charm. 

He  recited  it,  and  put  it  into  water. 

Sleep  overcame  him  (Apsu) ;  he  slept  soundly. 

65  He  caused  Apsu  to  repose;  sleep  overcame  (him). 

Mummu,  his  minister,  was  woefully  distressed. 

He  broke  his  restraint,  he  tore  off  his  cr[own]. 

His  majesty  departed;  he  became  delirious. 

He  bound  him,  namely  Apsu,  and  slew  him. 

70  Mummu  he  tied;  he  used  violence  against  him. 

He  established  upon  Apsu  his  dwelling. 

Mummu  he  grasped,  he  held  his  adversary. 

After  he  had  bound,  and  executed  his  adversaries, 

Ea  established  his  triumph  over  his  enemy. 

75  In  his  chamber,  he  rested  peacefully. 

He  named  it  apsH,  he  founded  (appointed)  shrines. 

Around  its  place  he  established  his  dry  ground. 

Ea  (Lakhmu),  and  Lakhamu,  his  spouse,  in  majesty  sat 
In  the  abode  of  fates,  the  dwelling  of  destinations. 

80  The  mighty  one  of  the  mighty,  the  leader  of  the  gods,  Anshar,  he  begat. 
In  the  midst  of  the  apsH,  was  Anshar  created. 

In  the  midst  of  the  holy  apsilj  was  Anshar  created. 

Lakhmu  (Ea),  his  father,  created  him. 

[Lakhjamu,  his  mother,  conceived  him. 

85  The  breast  of  the  goddesses,  suckled  him. 

The  pregnant  one  who  had  conceived  him,  had  implanted  reverence. 
Splendid  was  his  st[atu]re,  brilliant  was  the  glance  of  his  eye. 

Noble  was  his  going  forth,  a  hero  as  of  old. 

Lakhmu  (Ea),  the  begettor,  his  father,  saw  him; 

90  He  rejoiced,  he  beamed,  his  heart  was  filled  with  joy. 

He  exalted  him;  he  endowed  him  with  an  equality  of  (god)  El. 

He  was  exceedingly  tall;  he  overtopped  them— all  of  them. 
Indescribable  was  the  comeliness  of  his  appearance. 


194 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


FIRST  TABLET  (Continued) 

It  was  unimaginable;  it  was  irksome  visually. 

95  Four  were  his  eyes;  four  were  his  ears. 

His  lips,  in  emitting,  breathed  fire. 

There  grew  four  ears; 

And  eyes  like  that  (number) ;  they  discerned  everything. 

Sublime  among  the  gods  was  the  pretoinence  of  [his]  features. 

100  His  members  grew  high;  he  was  unusually  tall. 

?  ?  ?  ?  ? 

4  •  •  •  • 

He  was  clothed  with  the  majesty  of  ten  gods:  he  was  exceedingly 
powerful. 

Regard  for  their  predicament  overcame  him. 

. begat  Anu. 

(Twenty-two  fragmentary  lines  follow.) 

. the  word,  the  bright  god; 

. . .  thou  hast  given;  yes  we  will  make  a  [fight]. 

125  . the  gods  in  the  midst  of  [heaven]. 

. the  gods,  the  begettors. 

[They  are  banded  together],  and  they  pr[oceed]  at  Tiamat^s  side. 

They  are  an[gry];  they  plan  without  resting,  night  and  [day]. 

[They  pre]pare  for  the  conflict,  fuming  and  ra[ging]. 

130  They  formed  a  horde;  they  planned  a  re[volt]. 

Ummu-Khubur,  who  formed  all  th[ings], 

Has  [ad]ded  weapons  invincible;  she  bore  monster  serpents, 

[Sharp  of]  tooth,  and  relentless  in  attack(?). 

[With  poison,  instead]  of  blood,  she  filled  their  bodies. 

135  Raging  [monsters],  she  clothed  with  terror; 

With  [splendor]  she  endowed;  [she  made  like]  a  god. 

Those  [behol]ding  them,  will  be  over  [come  with  terror], 

Their  bodies  will  rear  up;  [their  breasts]  are  not  repulsed. 

[She  set]  up  serpents,  dragons  and  Lakhamu, 

140  Hurricanes,  raging  dogs,  scorpion-[men]. 

Mighty  storms,  fishmen,  and  rams. 

Bearing  relentless  weapons,  without  fear  of  bat[tle]. 

Powerful  are  her  orders;  they  are  irresistible. 

In  all,  eleven  like  that  [she  made]. 

145  Among  the  gods  her  firstborn  of  the  [assembly],  she  made  him; 

She  exalted  Kingu;  among  them  she  made  him  great. 

Marching  before  the  van  of  the  army,  leading  the  cr[owd]. 


APPENDICES. 


195 


FIRST  TABLET  (Continued) 

Bearing  the  weapon  of  assault,  the  assembler  of  the  hostility 
Of  the  conflict,  the  chief  conductor, 

150  She  intrusted  in  his  ha[nd]s;  she  caused  him  to  sit  in  the  karru, 

have  cast  thy  formula  in  the  assembly  of  the  gods;  I  have  made 
thee  great.’* 

With  the  kingship  of  the  gods,  all  of  them,  I  have  filled  [thy]  hand. 
^‘Verily  thou  art  exalted,  my  spouse,  thou  only  one! 

Let  thy  name  be  exalted  above  all  of  them — the  Anunnaki!” 

155  She  gave  him  the  tablets  of  fate,  which  on  his  breast  she  placed. 

“Thy  command  shall  not  be  altered;  the  [utterance  of  thy  mouth] 
shall  be  established.” 

When  Kingu  was  exalted,  he  received  [godship]  (anilti). 

Among  the  gods,  his  [so]ns,  he  [decreed]  dest[inies]. 

“Open  your  mouth,  the  fire  god  [will  be  quenched]. 

160  In  the  conflict,  let  him  be  supreme;  let  his  strength  [increase].” 

SECOND  TABLET 

When  Tiamat  made  her  work  strong. 

She  coUe[cted  a  force]  against  the  gods  her  offspring; 

[To  avenge]  Apsu,  Tiamat  planned  evil. 

As  she  had  collected  [her  army],  it  was  revealed  to  Ea. 

5  Ea  [gave  attention  to]  this  thing. 

He  was  [grievously]  affected;  he  sat  in  sorrow. 

As  the  [days]  passed  by,  his  anger  quieted  down. 

To  the  [place]  of  Anshar,  his  father,  he  set  upon  [his  way]. 

[He  went]  before  Anshar,  the  father  who  begat  him. 

10  [Everything]  which  Tiamat  had  planned,  he  repeated  to  him. 

[Thus]:  “Tiamat,  the  bearer  of  us,  hates  us. 

She  has  called  an  assembly;  she  rages  furiously. 

The  gods  have  turned  to  her,  all  of  them; 

[Including]  those  thou  hast  created,  they  go  by  her  side. 

15  They  are  [ban]ded  together,  and  they  proceed  at  Tiamat’s  side. 

They  are  [an]gry;  they  plan  without  resting,  night  and  day. 

They  [pre]pare  for  the  conflict,  fuming  and  raging. 

They  formed  a  horde;  they  planned  a  revolt. 

Ummu-Khubur,  who  formed  all  things, 

20  Has  added  weapons  invincible;  she  bore  monster  serpents. 


196 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


SECOND  TABLET  (Continued) 

Sharp  of  tooth,  and  relentless  in  attack(?). 

With  poison,  instead  of  blood,  she  filled  their  bodies. 

Raging  monsters,  she  clothed  with  terror; 

With  splendor  she  endowed;  she  made  like  a  god. 

25  Those  beholding  them,  will  be  overcome  with  terror. 

Their  bodies  will  rear  up;  their  breasts  are  not  repulsed. 

She  set  up  serpents,  dragons  and  Lakhamu, 

Hurricanes,  raging  dogs,  scorpion-men, 

Mighty  storms,-  fishmen,  and  rams, 

30  Bearing  relentless  weapons,  without  fear  of  battle. 

Powerful  are  her  orders;  they  are  irresistible.  * 

In  all,  eleven  like  that  she  made. 

Among  the  gods  her  firstborn  of  the  assembly,  she  made  him; 

She  exalted  Kingu;  among  them  she  made  him  great. 

35  Marching  before  the  van  of  the  army,  leading  the  crowd, 

Bearing  the  weapon  of  assault,  the  assembler  of  the  hostility, 

[Of  the]  conflict,  the  chief  conductor, 

[She  intrujsted  in  his  hands;  she  caused  him  to  sit  in  the  karru. 

^^[I  have  cast]  thy  formula  in  the  assembly  of  the  gods;  I  have  made 
thee  great. 

40  [With  the  king]ship  of  the  gods,  all  of  them,  I  have  filled  [thy]  hand. 
[Verily]  thou  art  exalted  [my  spouse],  tho[u  o]nly  one! 

[Let]  thy  name  be  exalted  [above  all]  of  them — the  [Anu]nnaki!” 

[She  gave]  him  the  tablets  of  fat[e,  which  on  his  breast]  she  [plac]ed. 
^‘[Thy  com]mand  [shall  not  be  altered];  the  [utter]ance  of  thy  mouth 
shall  be  established.^^ 

45  [When]  Kin[gu  was  exalt] ed,  he  received  godship  (anUti). 

[Among  the  gods,  his  sons],  he  decreed  destinies. 

[Op]en  [your]  mouth,  the  fire  god  will  be  quenched. 

In  the  con[flict],  [let  him  be  supreme];  let  his  strength  increase.^^ 
(Lines  49  to  71  are  fragmentary.) 

[Anshar,  to]  his  son,  spoke  [the  word]. 

. “this  is  my  mighty  hero. 

[Lofty]  is  his  strength,  whose  onslaught  is  invincible. 

75  [Go],  stand  thou  before  Tiamat 

That  her  spirit  [may  be  appeased],  her  heart  be  merciful. 

[If]  she  hearkens  not  to  thy  word. 

Our  [word]  tell  her,  that  she  may  be  appeased. 


APPENDICES. 


197 


SECOND  TABLET  (Continued) 

When  he  [heard]  the  command  of  his  father  Anshar, 

80  [He  set  out]  on  her  road,  he  made  his  way  upon  her  path. 

Anu  [drew  nigh],  he  saw  the  design  of  Tiamat. 

[He  was  impotent  before  her] ;  he  turned  back. 

[He  went  to  the  father,  his  begettor],  Anshar, 

[Concerning  Tiamat,]  he  said  to  him: 

85  .  .hand . against  me.” 

Anshar  was  troubled;  he  looked  at  the  ground. 

He  was  oppressed(?);  to  Ea  he  lifted  up  [his]  head. 

They  assembled  at  the  place,  all  of  the  Anunnaki. 

Their  hps  were  covered;  [they  sat]  in  silence. 

90  No  god  goes  forth  [to  meet  Tiamat]. 

From  the  presence  of  Tiamat,  no  one  comes  away  [alive]. 

The  lord  Anshar,  the  father  of  the  gods,  was  greatly  [agitated]. 
His  heart  was  stir[red];  and  [to  the  Anunnaki]  he  spoke. 

[He  whose  strength]  is  mighty,  shall  be  the  avenger  for  us. 

95  . battle,  Marduk  the  hero. 

. Ea,  the  place  of  his  oracle, 

[He  came]  and  he  told  him,  what  was  on  his  heart. 

^'Marduk,  on  a  plan  of  advice,  hear  thy  father! 

Thou  art  a  son,  who  has  relieved  his  heart. 

100  [Be]fore  Anshar,  proceed  in  the  attack! 

. he  shall  observe  thee,  resting.” 

The  lord  rejoiced  at  the  word  of  his  father. 

He  approached,  and  he  stood  in  the  presence  of  Anshar. 
Anshar  saw  him;  his  heart  was  filled  with  joy. 

105  He  kissed  his  lips,  his  fear  departed. 

“Before  thine  open  lips  be  covered, 

Let  me  go  and  satisfy  all  that  is  in  thy  heart. 

Before  thine  open  lips  are  covered. 

Let  me  go  and  satisfy  all  that  is  in  thy  heart. 

110  Wkat  man  has  brought  against  thee  this  battle? 

....  Tiamat,  who  is  a  woman,  attacks  thee  with  arms? 

. creator,  rejoice  and  be  glad. 

The  neck  of  Tiamat,  thou  shall  tread  upon  quickly. 

. creator,  rejoice  and  be  glad. 

115  [The  neck]  of  Tiamat,  thou  shall  tread  upon  quickly.” 

“My  son,  knowing  all  wisdom. 


198 


THE  ORIGIN  OP  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


SECOND  TABLET  (Continued) 

Quiet  [Tiamat]  with  thy  holy  incantation. 

[The  chariot]  of  the  storm,  speedily  set  out. 

. will  not  be  cut  off;  return  later 

120  The  lord  rejoiced  at  the  word  of  his  father. 

His  heart  [exulted];  to  his  father  he  spoke. 

“Oh,  lord  of  the  gods,  the  destiny  of  the  great  gods, 

If  I,  your  avenger, 

Enchain  Tiamat,  and  give  you  life, 

125  Proclaim  an  assembly,  exalt  my  destiny; 

In  upshukkinaki,  seat  yourselves  jo3ffully  together! 

Fix  my  status;  let  my  fate  like  your  own  be  fixed 
That  nothing  shall  be  changed  which  I  will  do. 

That  the  word  of  my  lips  is  not  altered,  is  not  changed.^ ^ 

THIRD  TABLET 

Anshar  opening  his  mouth 

To  Gaga,  his  minister,  he  spoke  the  word: 

“O  Gaga,  minister,  who  rejoices  my  liver. 

To  Lakhmu  and  Lakhamu,  I  will  send  thee. 

5  The  [order]  of  my  heart  which  thou  hast  obtained,  thou  shalt  relate. 
The  gods,  my  fathers,  bring  before  me. 

Let  the  gods,  aU  of  them  assemble. 

Let  a  banquet  be  established;  at  the  board  let  them  sit. 

Bread  let  them  eat;  let  them  prepare  wine. 

10  For  Marduk,  their  avenger,  let  them  decree  the  destiny. 

Go,  proceed  Gaga,  before  them  stand! 

[Everything]  I  told  thee,  repeat  to  them. 

Anshar,  your  son,  has  sent  me. 

[The  command]  of  his  heart  he  has  caused  me  to  comprehend. 

15  [Thus:  Tijamat,  the  bearer  of  us,  hates  us. 

She  has  cal[led  an  assembly];  she  rages  furiously. 

The  gods  have  [tujrned  to  her,  all  of  them; 

Including  those  thou  hast  created,  they  go  by  her  side. 

They  are  banded  together,  and  they  proceed  at  Tiamat^s  side. 

20  They  are  angry;  they  plan  without  resting,  night  and  day. 

They  prepare  for  the  conflict,  fuming  and  raging. 

They  formed  a  horde;  they  planned  a  revolt. 


APPENDICES. 


199 


THIRD  TABLET  (Continued) 

Ummu-Khubur,  who  formed  all  things, 

Has  added  weapons  invincible;  she  bore  monster  serpents, 

25  Sharp  of  tooth,  and  relentless  in  attack(?). 

With  poison,  instead  of  blood,  she  filled  their  bodies. 

Raging  monsters,  she  [clo]thed  with  terror; 

With  splendor  she  endowed;  she  made  like  a  god. 

Those  beholding  them,  will  be  over[come]  with  terror. 

30  Their  bodies  will  rear  up;  [th'eir  breasts  are  not  repulsed. 

She  set  up  serpents,  dragons  and  Lakhamu, 

Hurricanes,  raging  dogs,  scorpion-men. 

Mighty  storms,  fishmen,  and  ra[ms]. 

Bearing  relentless  weapons,  without  fear  of  battle. 

35  Powerful  are  her  orders;  they  are  irresistible. 

In  all,  eleven  like  that  she  made. 

Among  the  gods  her  firstborn  of  the  [assembly],  she  made  him; 

She  exalted  Kingu;  among  them  she  made  [him  grjeat. 

Marching  before  the  van  of  the  army,  [leading  the  crowd,] 

40  Bearing  the  weapon  of  assault,  the  as[sembler  of  the  hostility] 

Of  the  conflict,  the  chief  conductor. 

She  intrusted  in  his  hands;  she  caused  him  to  sit  [in  the  karru.] 

I  have  cast  thy  formula  in  the  assembly  of  the  gods;  [I  have  made 
thee  great].’^ 

With  the  [ki]ngship  of  the  gods,  all  [of  them,  I  have  filled  thy]  hand. 
45  [Verily],  thou  art  exalted,  my  spouse,  [thou]  only  one! 

Let  thy  name  be  exalted  above  all  of  them — the  [Anunnaki!”] 

She  gave  him  the  tablets  of  fate,  which  on  his  breast  she  placed. 
‘^Thy  command  shall  not  be  altered;  the  utterance  of  thy  mouth 
shall  be  established.” 

When  Kingu  was  exalted,  he  received  godship  {anUti). 

50  Among  the  gods,  his  sons,  he  dec[reed]  destinies. 

*‘Open  your  mouth,  the  fire  god  will  be  quenched. 

In  the  conflict,  let  him  be  supreme;  let  his  strength  increase. 

I  sent  Anu;  but  he  was  impotent  before  her. 

Nudimmud  (Ea)  feared,  and  turned  back. 

55  Then  came  Marduk,  your  son,  the  leader  of  the  gods. 

To  set  out  against  Tiamat,  his  heart  moved  (him). 

He  opened  his  mouth;  he  spoke  to  me. 

If  I,  your  avenger, 


200 


THE  OKIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TKADITIONS. 


THIRD  TABLET  (Continued) 

Enchain  Tiamat,  and  give  you  life, 

60  Proclaim  an  assembly,  exalt  my  destiny; 

In  upshukkinaki,  seat  yourselves  joyfully  together! 

Fix  my  status;  let  my  fate  like  your  own  be  fixed 
That  nothing  shall  be  changed  which  I  will  do. 

That  the  word  of  my  lips  is  not  altered,  is  not  changed. 

65  Hasten,  and  your  destiny  quickly  determine 
That  he  may  go,  and  meet  your  strong  enemy. 

Gaga  went,  he  set  out  on  his  way. 

To  Lakhmu  and  Lakhamu,  the  gods,  his  fathers. 

He  did  homage,  he  kissed  the  ground  under  them. 

70  He  advanced,  he  stood,  and  spoke  to  them, 

Anshar,  your  son  has  sent  me. 

The  purpose  of  his  heart,  he  has  caused  me  to  comprehend, 
Thus:  Tiamat  who  begat  us,  hates  us. 

She  has  called  an  assembly;  she  rages  furiously. 

75  The  gods  have  turned  to  her,  all  of  them. 

Including  those  thou  hast  created,  they  go  by  her  side. 

They  are  banded  together,  and  they  proceed  at  Tiamat^s  side. 
They  are  angry;  they  plan  without  resting,  night  and  day. 
They  prepare  for  the  conflict,  fuming  and  raging. 

80  They  formed  a  horde;  they  planned  a  revolt. 

Ummu-Khubur,  who  formed  all  things. 

Has  added  weapons  invincible;  she  bore  monster  serpents, 
Sharp  of  tooth,  and  relentless  in  attack(?). 

With  poison,  instead  of  blood,  she  filled  their  bodies. 

85  Raging  monsters,  she  clothed  with  terror; 

With  splendor  she  endowed;  she  made  like  a  god. 

Those  beholding  them,  will  be  overcome  with  terror. 

Their  bodies  will  rear  up;  their  breasts  are  not  repulsed. 

She  set  up  serpents,  dragons,  and  Lakhamu, 

90  Hurricanes,  raging  dogs,  scorpion-men. 

Mighty  storms,  fishmen,  and  rams. 

Bearing  relentless  weapons,  without  fear  of  battle. 

Powerful  are  her  orders;  they  are  irresistible. 

In  all,  eleven  like  that  she  made. 

95  Among  the  gods  her  firstborn  of  the  assembly,  she  made  him; 
She  exalted  Kingu;  among  them  she  made  him  great. 


APPENDICES. 


201 


THIRD  TABLET  (Continued) 


Marching  before  the  van  of  the  army,  leading  the  crowd, 

Bearer  of  the  weapon  of  assault,  the  assembler  of  the  hostility 
Of  the  conflict,  the  chief  conductor, 

100  She  intrusted  in  his  hands;  she  caused  him  to  sit  in  the  karru. 

^‘I  have  cast  thy  formula;  in  the  assembly  of  the  gods,  I  have  made 
thee  great.’’ 

With  the  kingship  of  the  gods,  all  of  them,  I  have  filled  [thy]  hand. 
Verily  thou  art  exalted,  my  spouse,  thou  only  one! 

Let  thy  name  be  exalted  above  all  of  them — the  Anunnaki!” 

105  She  gave  him  the  tablets  of  fate,  which  on  his  breast  [she  placed]. 
^‘Thy  command  shall  not  be  alte[red;  the  utterance  of  thy  mouth 
shall  be  established.”] 

When  Kingu  was  exalted,  [he  received  godship  (anuti)]. 

Among  the  gods,  his  sons,  [he  decreed  destin]ies. 

^‘Open  your  mouth,  the  fire  god  [will  be  quenched]. 

110  In  the  conflict,  let  him  be  supreme;  let  his  stre[ngth  increase].” 

I  sent  Anu;  but  he  was  impo[tent  before  her]. 

Nudimmud  (Ea)  was  afraid,  and  tu[rned  back]. 

Then  came  Marduk,  your  son,  the  lea[der  of  the  gods]. 

To  set  out  against  Tiamat,  his  he  [art  moved  (him)]. 

115  He  opened  his  mouth;  [he  spoke  to  me], 

“If  I,  your  aven[ger]. 

Enchain  Tiamat,  [and  give  you  life]. 

Proclaim  an  assembly,  [exalt  my  destiny]  ; 

In  upshukkinaki,  [seat  yourselves  joyfully  together]! 

120  Fix  my  status;  [let  my  fate  like  your  own  be  fixed] 

That  nothing  shall  be  changed  which  [I]  will  do. 

That  the  word  of  [my  lips]  is  not  altered,  is  not  changed. 

Hasten,  and  your  [destiny]  quickly  determine 
That  he  may  go,  and  meet  your  strong  enemy.” 


125  When  Lakhmu  and  Lakhamu  heard;  they  cried  aloud. 
The  Igigi,  all  of  them,  howled  bitterly. 

“What  is  the  enmity,  unto  their  taking . 

We  do  not  know  what  Tiamat  is  thinking(?).” 

They  gathered  together,  they  went. 

130  The  great  gods,  all  of  them,  who  determine  [destiny]. 
Entered  and  before  Anshar,  they  filled .... 

Brother  was  kissed  by  brother;  in  the  assembly . 


202 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


THIRD  TABLET  (Continued) 

They  held  the  feast;  at  the  board  [they  sat]. 

Bread  they  ate;  they  prepared  [the  wine]. 

135  The  sweet  drink  made  them  drunken  (?) . . . 

Becoming  drunk  in  drinking  to  the  fullness  of  [their]  bodies, 
They  became  very  hilarious;  their  liver  was  exalted, 

For  Marduk,  their  avenger,  they  determined  destiny. 


FOURTH  TABLET 

They  placed  for  him  a  princely  seat. 

Before  his  fathers,  they  endowed  (him)  for  rulership. 

^‘Thou  art  honored  among  the  great  gods. 

Thy  destiny  is  beyond  compare;  thy  word  is  Anu. 

5  Marduk,  thou  art  honored  among  the  great  gods. 

Thy  destiny  is  beyond  compare;  thy  word  is  Anu, 

From  this  day  thy  command  shall  not  be  changed. 

To  exalt  and  abase,  it  truly  is  in  thy  hand. 

The  utterance  of  thy  mouth  truly  is  established ;  thy  word  is  unchange¬ 
able. 

10  None  among  the  gods  shall  trangresss  thy  prerogative. 

Maintenance  is  desired  at  the  shrine  of  the  gods. 

Where  there  is  need,  establish  (it)  for  thy  place. 

Marduk,  thou  art  our  avenger. 

We  give  thee  sovereignty  over  the  totality  of  everything. 

15  Thou  shalt  sit  in  the  assembly;  thy  word  shall  be  exalted. 

That  thy  weapon  be  unfailing,  let  it  smash  thy  foes. 

O  lord,  save  the  life  of  him,  who  trusts  in  thee. 

But  the  god  who  has  undertaken  evil,  pour  out  his  life.’^ 

They  placed  in  their  midst  a  garment. 

20  To  Marduk,  their  firstborn,  they  spoke: 

“Thy  destiny,  0  lord,  verily,  is  foremost  of  the  gods. 

To  destroy  and  to  create,  speak;  it  will  be  accomplished. 

Open  thy  mouth;  the  garment  will  be  destroyed. 

Command  it  return;  the  garment  is  whole. 

25  He  spoke  with  his  mouth;  the  garment  was  destroyed. 

He  commanded  it  again;  the  garment  was  restored. 

When  the  gods,  his  fathers,  beheld  the  effect  of  his  word 
They  rejoiced,  they  did  homage:  “Marduk  is  King!^^ 


APPENDICES. 


203 


FOURTH  TABLET  (Continued) 

30  They  bestowed  upon  him  sceptre,  throne  and  pala. 

They  gave  him  an  unrivalled  weapon,  the  destroyer  of  enemies. 

*^Go,  and  cut  off  the  life  of  Tiamat! 

Let  the  wind  carry  her  blood  off  to  obscurity.’^ 

The  gods,  his  fathers,  decreed  for  the  lord  his  destiny. 

The  path  of  peace  and  prosperity,  they  caused  him  to  take  the  road. 
35  He  fashioned  the  bow;  he  appointed  his  weapon. 

He  seized  the  javelin;  he  fastened  the  rope  to  himself. 

He  raised  the  club;  his  right  hand  grasped  (it). 

The  bow  and  quiver,  he  slung  by  his  side. 

He  fixed  the  lightning  in  front  of  him. 

40  With  flaming  fire,  he  filled  his  body. 

He  made  a  net  in  which  to  enclose  Tiamat. 

He  caused  the  four  winds  to  take  hold,  that  nothing  of  her  might 
escape : 

The  south  wind,  the  north  wind,  the  east  wind,  and  the  west. 

By  his  side,  he  slung  the  net,  the  gift  of  his  father  Anu. 

45  He  created  a  bad  wind,  an  evil  wind,  the  tempest,  the  hurricane, 

The  four-fold  wind,  the  seven-fold  wind,  the  typhoon,  the  tornado. 
He  set  forth  the  winds  which  he  had  created,  the  seven  of  them. 

To  trouble  Tiamat's  inward  parts,  they  came  on  after  him. 

The  lord  lifted  up  the  ahubu,  his  mighty  weapon. 

50  He  mounted  the  chariot,  the  unrivalled  and  terrible  storm. 

He  harnessed  the  four-steed  team  which  he  yoked  to  it. 

The  destructive,  the  relentless,  the  overwhelming,  the  swift. 

Their  sharp  teeth  bearing  poison. 

They  know  [how  to  destroy],  they  had  learned  to  overrun. 

55  . fearful  in  warfare. 

Left  and  [right . 

. ,  clothed  with  terror. 

His  overpowering  majesty,  was  a  covering  for  his  head. 

He  took  [his  road] ;  he  followed  his  pa[th]. 

60  To  the  place  of  the  [rag]ing  Tiamat,  he  set  his  face. 

In  his  lips  he  held . 

A  plant  to  destroy  poison,  he  seized  with  his  hand. 

In  his  storm  they  gazed  at  him,  the  gods  gazed  at  him. 

The  gods,  his  fathers,  gazed  at  him,  the  gods  gazed  at  him. 

65  The  lord  drew  near,  he  inspected  Tiamat’s  battle  array. 


204 


THE  OKIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


FOURTH  TABLET  (Continued) 

He  perceived  the  plan  of  Kingu,  her  spouse. 

He  gazes,  and  his  way  is  confused. 

His  plan  is  destroyed,  his  action  disturbed. 

When  the  gods,  his  helpers,  marching  by  his  side, 

70  Beheld  their . leader,  their  look  was  troubled. 

Tiamat  utt[ered  a  cry],  she  did  not  turn  her  neck. 

With  lips  of  boastfulness (?),  she  maintained  the  rebellion. 

. thy  coming  as  lord  of  the  gods. 

They  gathered  at  their  places,  they  are  in  thy  place. 

75  The  lord  [raised]  the  ahuhu,  his  great  weapon. 

The  challenge  to  Tiamat,  who  was  raging,  thus  he  sent  it. 

. thou  art  raised  above. 

. art  prompted  to  slay. 

. their  fathers . 

80 . thou  hatest . 

. Kingu,  to  be  thy  spouse. 

. to  decree  like  Anu 

. thou  hast  pursued  [ev]il . 

[Against  the  gods]  my  fathers  thou  hast  devised  thine  evil. 

85  Let  thy  forces  be  joined;  verily,  they  have  girded  on  thy  weapons. 
Stand,  I  and  thou,  let  us  have  the  fight. 

Tiamat,  in  her  hearing  these  words, 

Became  like  one  possessed;  her  reason  was  distraught. 

Tiamat  cried  out  highly  furiously. 

90  Like  roots,  her  legs  to  her  foundations  shook. 

She  recited  an  incantation,  she  pronounced  her  spell. 

And  the  gods  of  the  battle  unsheathed  their  weapons. 

Tiamat,  and  the  leader  of  the  gods,  Marduk,  stood  before  each  other. 
They  approached  each  other  for  the  fight;  they  drew  nigh  for  the 
battle. 

95  The  lord  spread  out  his  net,  and  enclosed  her. 

The  bad  wind  he  had  placed  behind,  he  thrust  into  her  face. 

Tiamat  opened  her  mouth  to  its  full  extent. 

He  drove  in  the  bad  wind  that  she  could  not  close  her  lips. 

The  furious  winds  filled  her  belly. 

100  The  heart  was  shocked,  and  she  opened  her  mouth. 

He  used  the  spear,  he  burst  open  her  belly. 

He  cut  into  her  inwards;  he  pierced  the  heart. 


APPENDICES. 


205 


FOURTH  TABLET  (Continued) 

He  bound  her,  and  destroyed  her  hfe. 

He  cast  down  her  corpse,  he  stood  upon  it. 

105  When  he  had  slain  Tiamat,  the  leader. 

Her  power  was  broken;  her  crowd  was  scattered. 

And  the  gods  her  helpers,  who  went  by  her  side 
Trembled,  feared  and  turned  their  backs. 

They  made  an  exit  to  save  their  Hves. 

110  They  were  surrounded  by  a  cordon;  they  were  not  able  to  make  an 
escape. 

He  caught  them;  their  weapons  he  broke. 

Into  the  net  they  were  cast ;  in  the  snare  they  sat. 

Put  in  an  enclosed  place,  they  were  filled  with  wailing. 

They  bore  his  punishment;  they  were  held  in  bondage. 

115  And  on  the  eleven  creatures,  who  were  loaded  with  fearfulness, 

The  troop  of  the  devils  going  before  her. 

He  thrust  into  fetters;  their  forces  he . 

Together  with  their  opposition,  he  trampled  under  him. 

And  Kingu,  who  had  been  magnified  [above]  them, 

120  He  bound  him  and  with  the  god  Dugga  (god  of  death)  he  reckoned  him. 
He  took  from  him  the  tablets  of  destiny  which  were  not  befitting  him, 
Sealed  with  a  seal  and  placed  on  his  breast. 

After  he  bound  and  slew  his  enemies. 

And  the  arrogant  foe  he  treated  like  a  bull(?) 

125  The  victory  of  Anshar  over  the  enemy  he  completely  accomplished. 
The  wish  of  Nudimmud  he  had  attained,  Marduk  the  warrior 
Over  the  captive  gods  he  had  strengthened  his  hold. 

To  Tiamat  whom  he  had  bound,  he  turned  back. 

The  lord  trod  upon  Tiamat^s  foundation. 

130  With  his  merciless  club  he  smashed  the  skull. 

He  cut  through  the  veins  of  her  blood; 

The  north  wind  carried  (it)  to  obscurity. 

His  fathers  saw,  they  rejoiced,  they  were  glad. 

They  brought  greetings-gifts  to  him. 

135  The  lord  rested,  inspecting  her  corpse. 

In  parting  the  carcass,  devising  a  cunning  plan. 

He  split  her  like  a  mashdi  fish,  into  two  parts. 

With  her  half  he  established  and  protected  the  heavens. 

He  drew  the  bolt;  he  stationed  a  guard. 


206 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


FOURTH  TABLET  (Continued) 

140  He  ordered  them  not  to  let  her  waters  escape. 

He  passed  over  the  heavens;  he  encircled  the  regions. 

He  set  before  the  a-psii  the  dwelling  of  Nudimmud. 

The  lord  measured  for  apsiX’s  structures. 

He  founded  the  great  house,  Esharra,  in  its  likeness; 

145  The  great  house  Esharra  which  he  built  in  heaven. 

Anu,  Enlil,  and  Ea  he  caused  to  occupy  their  cities. 

FIFTH  TABLET 

He  formed  the  stations  for  the  great  gods. 

The  stars,  their  image  he  established  lumashu  constellations. 
He  ordained  the  year;  he  defined  the  divisions, 

For  twelve  months  he  fixed  three  stars  (each). 

5  After  he  designa[ted]  images  for  the  days  of  the  year . 

He  founded  the  station  Nibir,  to  determine  their  bounds. 

That  none  might  go  wrong  or  err 

The  station  of  Enlil  and  Ea  he  fixed  with  him. 

He  opened  the  gates  on  both  sides. 

10  The  bolt,  he  made  strong  on  the  left  and  right. 

In  its  midst  he  established . 

The  moon-god,  he  caused  to  shine,  and  entrusted  the  night. 

He  appointed  him  a  being  of  the  night,  to  determine  the  days, 
Monthly  without  ceasing  into  a  crown  he  formed, 

15  In  the  beginning  of  the  month,  shining  over  the  land. 

Horns  thou  shalt  show  to  determine  six  days. 

On  the  seventh  day,  let  the  crown  [be  halved]. 

On  shapattu,  verily  thou  shall  stand  over  against  [the  sun]. 
When  the  sun-god  on  the  horizon  of  the  heavens, 

20  Divide  the . look . 

[On  the  huhhulu  day]  the  path  of  the  sun-god  approach, 

[On  the  28th  day]  thou  shalt  stand  against  the  sun-god. 

. to  go  her  way. 

. thou  shalt  approach,  give  justice 

. to  destroy. 

(Many  lines  missing.) 


APPENDICES. 


207 


SIXTH  TABLET 

When  Marduk,  on  [hearjing  the  words  of  the  gods, 

his  heart  being  stirred,  and  devising  cunning  plans. 

Opened  his  mouth;  to  Ea  he  [spoke]  concerning 

what  he  had  planned  in  his  heart,  giving  council. 

Blood  I  will  gather,  and  bone  I  will  fashion. 

I  will  establish  a  lit,-gal-lu;  ‘‘man”  shall  be  his  name. 

5  I  will  create  a  man — an  amelu. 

They  shall  do  the  work  of  the  gods,  that  they  may  be  reconciled. 

I  will  change  the  ways  of  the  gods;  I  will  act  cleverly. 

Alike  they  shall  be  honored;  into  two  (groups)  they  shall  be  divided.” 

Ea  answered  him,  speaking  the  word  to  him; 

10  For  the  reconciliation  of  the  gods,  he  repeated  to  him  the  plan. 

“Let  one,  their  brother,  be  offered  up; 

let  him  perish,  and  let  people  be  fashioned. 

Let  the  great  gods  assemble; 

let  this  one  be  offered  up  that  they  may  exist.” 

Marduk  assembled  the  great  gods; 

presenting  his  plan ;  and  giving  the  command. 

He  opened  his  mouth;  commanding  the  gods; 
as  king  to  the  Anunnaki,  he  speaks  the  word : 

15  “Let  your  former  designations  be  established. 

Trustworthy  things,  I  swear  the  word  with  myself. 

Who  was  he  who  created  warfare? 

Who  incited  Tiamat  to  revolt,  and  joined  battle? 

Let  him  be  offered  up  who  created  warfare. 

20  I  will  cause  him  to  bear  his  sin;  that  you  may  dwell  in  peace.” 

The  Igigi,  the  great  gods,  answered  him; 

To  the  king  of  the  gods  of  heaven  and  earth,  counsellor  of  the  gods, 
their  lord : 

“Kingu  was  the  one  who  created  warfare. 

’Twas  he  who  incited  Tiamat  to  revolt,  who  joined  battle.” 

25  They  bound  him,  and  before  Ea  [brought]  him; 

and  the  punishment  they  laid  upon  him;  they  extracted  his  blood. 

With  his  blood  he  made  mankind; 

he  imposed  [upon  him  the  serv]ice  of  the  gods;  he  released  the  gods. 

When  mankind  was  created,  Ea  [sav]ed  (them) ; 
the  work  of  the  gods  he  placed  upon  him. 

That  work,  which  was  not  intelligently  done. 


208 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


SIXTH  TABLET  (Continued) 

through  the  craftiness  of  Marduk . 

Marduk,  the  king  of  the  gods,  divided  the  host  of  the  Anunnaki; 

. above  and  below 

30  He  appointed  for  Anu  to  guard  [the  law] ; 

[in]  the  midst  [of  heaven,  he  established]  a  watch. 


He  altered  the  ways  of  the  earth, . and  earth . 

After  Marduk  had  issued  the  oracles, . the  Anunnaki; 

The  Anunnaki  [of  the . 

35  To  Marduk,  their  lord,  they  spoke : 


Nannar,  my  lord,  who  had  estabhshed  our  release, 

What  is  our  grace  before  thee! 

Oh,  let  us  make  a  shrine,  whose  name  will  be  proclaimed. 

An  abode,  truly  our  resting  place,  that  we  will  have  peace  in  it. 

40  Come,  let  us  found  a  shr[ine] ;  we  will  establish  .... 

In  the  day  we  have  succeeded,  we  will  rest  therein.’^ 

Marduk,  when  he  had  heard  this. 

Like  the  day  his  countenance  shone  exceedingly. 

^‘Like  . . .  Babylon,  whose  work  you  have  desired, 

45  Let  the  city  be  build;  let  its  bright  (?)  shrine  be  fashioned.” 

The  [A]nunnaki  carried  the  basket; 

the  first  year,  [they  made]  their  bricks. 

As  the  second  year  approached,  they  reared  the  head  of  Esagil  as 
against  the  ap«4.  n 

They  built  the  ziggurrat  in  the  upper  a'psH] 

for  Marduk,  Enlil,  and  Ea,  in  it  they  established  a  dwelling. 

In  majesty  before  them  he  sat; 

hke  a  root  [springs  up],  they  watched  its  horns. 

50  After  they  had  constructed  the  work  of  E[sag]ila, 

the  Anunnaki,  [all]  of  them  fashioned  their  shrines. 

To  Marduk,  ki[ng  of  the  great  gods]  on  the  border  of  the  aysii,  all  of 
them  assembled,  they  sat  in  the  shrine,  whose  dwelling  they  had 
f  -  built. 

The  gods,  his  fathers,  he  caused  to  sit  at  his . 

This  is  Babylon,  the  place  of  your  dwelling. 

They  sacrificed  to  its  place,  [they  made]  a  feast; 
the  gods  sat  down. 

They  set  up  the  drink[ing]  vessel;  out  of  the  chalice  they  drank 
after  the  wine(?)  was  placed  in  their  midst. 


APPENDICES. 


209 


SIXTH  TABLET  (Continued) 


55  In  Esagil . 

Laws  were  established;  plans  were  formulated. 

The  stations  of  heaven  and  earth  were  assigned  to  the  gods,  all  of  them, 
The  great  gods  sat  down  joyfully. 

The  gods,  the  destiny  of  their  Sihi,  for  eternity  he  stationed. 

60  Enlil  raised  [the  weapon,  he  laid  it  bejfore  them. 

The  net  which  he  had  made,  the  great  gods  saw. 

They  beheld  the  bow,  how  artful  was  its  construction. 

The  work  which  he  had  done,  his  fathers  praised. 

Anu  raised  it,  and  speaks  in  the  assembly  of  the  gods. 

65  He  kissed  the  bow;  it  .... 

Thus  are  the  names  of  the  bow  he  named : 

long- wood  is  the  first;  the  second  .... 

The  third  of  its  name  is  bow-star  in  the  heavens.  . 

He  established  the  station  .... 

After  the  fates  of . 

70  He  laid  the  throne . 

Anu  in  heaven . 

They  assembled . 

. Marduk . 

(Five  lines  missing.) 

He  made  exceed . 

80  To  their  words . 

He  opened  his  mouth . 


Let  Marduk  be  exalted . 

His  lordship,  verily,  is  magnified . 

85  Let  him  do  the  shepherding  of  the  Blackheaded . . . 
That  in  later  days,  lest  his  deeds  be  forgotten  . . . 
Let  him  establish  for  his  fathers  the  offerings  .... 

Their  support  let  him  [provide . 

Let  him  cause  to  smell  the  in[cense . 

90  An  image  in  heaven  he  made . 

Let  him  appoint . 

Not . 


Let  offerings  be  brought  their  god  (and)  their  goddess. 
95  Lest  they  be  forgotten,  let  them  support  their  god. 


210 


THE  OKIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


SIXTH  TABLET  (Continued) 

Let  them  adorn  their  path;  let  them  build  their  shrines. 

. the  Blackheaded,  our  god. 

For  us  whatever  name  we  mention,  he,  verily,  is  our  El. 

[Yes],  we  will  name  his  fifty  names. 

100  His  triumph,  truly,  is  magnificent;  his  deeds,  verily,  are  the  same. 
Marduk,  who  on  his  going  forth,  his  father  Anu  named  him; 

He  estabhshes  the  storms  against  the  enemies;  he  makes  plentiful 
their  violence ; 

Who  with  his  weapon  ahuhu  bound  the . 

The  gods  his  fathers,  he  saved  in  distress. 

105  Verily,  his  sonship  of  the  gods,  they  proclaimed  him. 

In  his  shining  light,  they  will  walk  continuously. 

On  the  people,  whom  he  created,  creatures  of  life(?). 

The  work  of  the  gods  he  imposed,  that  they  were  appeased. 

. the  star  .  . 

110  Verily  their  protection  (?) . their  glance,  himself. 

Marduk,  verily  his  deity . 

Who  gladdens  the  heart  of  the  Anunnaki;  who  pacifies  the  .... 
Marduk,  verily  the  assistance  of  his  land  and  his  [people]. 

Him,  let  be  honored,  the  people  have . 

115  Sharru,  the  decider,  stood  and  the  adversary  is  over  [thrown]. 

Wide  was  his  heart;  warm  his  compassion. 

Lugal-dimmer-an-ki,  whose  name,  our  assembly  pronounced. 

We  will  bring  the  word  of  his  mouth  unto  the  gods  his  fathers. 

Truly,  he  is  the  lo[rd]  of  the  gods  of  heaven  and  earth,  all  of  them. 

120  The  king,  whose  consecration  the  gods . 

Nari-lugal-dimmer-an-ld-a,  whose  name  we  have  mentioned,  a  place 
for  all  the  gods. 

Who  is  heaven  and  earth,  established  our  abode  in  distress. 

To  the  Igigi  and  the  Anunnaki,  he  divided  the  station  (s). 

At  his  name,  let  the  gods  tremble;  let  the  shrines  totter. 

125  Silig-lu-dug  is  his  name,  which  Anu  his  father  pronounced. 

He,  verily,  is  the  light  of  the  gods;  the  mighty  gishtu. 

Who,  like  a  cloth  is  spread  out,  is  a  protecting  deity  of  god  and  land. 
Who,  in  a  mighty  battle  protected  our  dwelling  in  distress. 
Silig-lu-dug,  the  god  of  life,  again  the  gods  named  his  name  (?). 

130  Who,  like  his  creatures,  strengthened  the  dejected  gods. 

The  lord,  who,  with  his  holy  incantation,  resuscitated  the  dying  gods. 


APPENDICES. 


211 


SIXTH  TABLET  (Continued) 

The  destroyer  of  the  ....  the  hater  of . 

Verily,  the  shining  god,  whose  name  was  named. 

A  pure  god,  who  makes  our  path  bright. 

135  . . .  whom  Anshar,  Lakhmu  and  Lakhamu  had  na[med]. 

To  the  [gods  their  children],  they  spoke. 

We(?)  ....  mentioned  his  name. 

A  true . mentioned. 

The  gods  rejoiced . their  name. 

140  In  Upshukinnaka,  he  caused  them  to  lay  aside  (?)  their  fetters. 

^^Of  the  warrior  son,  our  avenger. 

We,  who  are  patrons,  will  [exalt]  his  name.” 

They  sat  down  in  their  assembly;  they  named  his  destiny. 

In  the  ...  of  their  totahty,  they  proclaimed  his  name. 

SEVENTH  TABLET 

Asari,  the  donor  of  fruitfulness,  the  founder  [of  agriculture], 

The  creator  of  grain  and  plants,  who  causes  [the  green  herb  to  spring 
forth], 

Asaru-alim,  who  in  the  house  of  counsel  is  hon[ored  for  surpassing 
counsel]. 

Whom  the  gods  have  rev[ered . 

5  Asaru-alim-nunna,  the  great,  the  light  of  [the  father,  his  begettor]. 
Who  directs  the  law  of  Anu,  Enlil,  [and  Ea], 

He  is  their  patron,  he  ordained . 

Whose  provision  he  supplies  abundantly. 

Tutu,  the  creator  of  their  restoration  is  [he]. 

10  If  he  consecrates  their  sanctuaries,  truly  they  are  [pacified]. 

If  he  makes  an  incantation,  the  gods  will  [be  appeased]. 

If  they  rise  in  anger,  he  will  subdue  [their  breasts]. 

Truly,  he  is  exalted,  in  the  assembly  of  the  gods . 

No  one  among  the  gods  is  like  him. 

15  Tutu,  the  Zi-ukkinna,  the  life  of  the  host  .... 

Who  established  for  the  gods  the  holy  heavens . 

Who  set  their  way,  and  ordained . 

Lest  there  be  forgotten  among  men  the  deeds . 

Tutu,  the  Zi-azag,  as  the  third  they  named,  who  effects  purification; 
20  The  god  of  the  good  wind,  the  lord  of  the  obedient  and  benevolent. 


212 


THE  OEIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


SEVENTH  TABLET  (Continued) 

The  creator  of  fullness  and  plenty,  who  establishes  abundance. 
Whatever  is  lacking,  he  turns  to  plenty. 

In  sore  distress,  we  caught  his  good  wind. 

Let  them  proclaim,  let  them  exalt,  let  them  render  his  service. 

25  Tutu,  the  Aga-azag,  as  the  fourth,  mankind  will  magnify. 

The  lord  of  the  holy  incantation,  who  brings  the  dead  to  life. 

Who  granted  mercy  to  the  captive  gods. 

He  removed  the  yoke  which  he  had  imposed  upon  the  gods,  his  enemies. 
For  their  deliverance,  he  created  humanity. 

30  The  merciful  ono,  with  whom  there  is  power  to  give  life. 

Let  them  be  established,  lest  his  word  be  forgotten 
In  the  mouth  of  the  Black-headed,  whom  his  hands  have  created. 
Tuti,  the  Tu-azag,  as  the  fifth,  his  holy  incantation,  he  will  pronounce 
pashina 

Who,  through  his  holy  incantation,  destroys  all  the  wicked. 

35  Shazu,  who  knows  the  heart  of  the  gods,  who  sees  the  innermost  parts, 
The  doer  of  evil  he  taketh  not  out  with  him; 

The  founder  of  the  assembly  of  the  gods,  [who  appeases]  their  hearts; 

The  subduer  of  the  disobedient . 

The  director  of  righteousness,  who  guards . 

40  Who,  the  rebellion  and  .... 

Tutu,  the  Zisi,  the . 

Who  banishes  the  fury . 

Tutu,  the  Sukh-kur,  as  the  third,  who  destroys . 

Who  confuses  their  plan . 

45  VTio  destroys  all  the  wicked . 

(About  sixty  lines  missing.) 

Verily,  he  takes  ....  their  . . .  truly  they  look  upon  him. 

Thus:  who  passed  through  the  midst  of  Tiamat . 

His  name  truly  is  Nibiru,  who  seizes  its  midst. 

110  He  will  uphold  the  ways  of  the  stars  of  heaven. 

He  will  pasture  the  gods  like  a  flock,  all  of  them. 

He  will  bind  Tiamat,  he  will  trouble  and  oppress  her  soul. 

In  the  future  of  men,  in  the  oldness  of  days. 

He  will  bear  up  without  ceasing;  he  will  rule  for  eternity. 

115  Since  he  built  the  places  (heaven),  fashioned  the  fastnesses  (earth), 
‘^The  lord  of  lands,’^  Enlil  the  father,  has  pronounced  his  name. 

The  Igigi  named  the  names,  all  of  them. 


APPENDICES. 


213 


SEVENTH  TABLET  (Continued) 

Ea  heard,  and  his  hver  rejoiced. 

Thus:  ‘‘He  whose  names  his  fathers  have  magnified, 

120  He,  like  me,  Ea,  truly  is  his  name. 

The  sum-total  of  my  commands,  all  of  them  he  will  observe. 
All  my  oracles  he  shall  observe.” 

By  the  fifty  names,  the  great  gods; 

His  fifty  names  they  named,  they  made  his  path  excel. 

125  Let  them  be  held  fast,  let  the  foremost  reveal  (them). 

Let  the  wise  and  the  understanding  consider  them  together. 
Let  the  father  repeat  (them),  and  teach  the  son. 

Let  the  shepherd  and  the  herdsman  open  their  ears. 

Let  them  rejoice,  for  the  Enlil  of  the  gods,  Marduk, 

130  Will  make  his  land  prosperous;  it  verily  will  succeed. 

His  word  is  established;  his  command  is  unchangeable. 

The  utterance  of  his  mouth,  no  god  shall  revoke. 

When  he  looks  about,  he  turns  not  his  neck. 

In  his  anger  (and)  his  wrath,  no  god  can  face  him. 

135  Extended  is  his  heart;  wide  is  his  compassion; 

The  sinner  and  evil-doer,  before  him  .... 

They  received  instruction,  they  spoke  in  his  presence 


. Marduk,  verily  the  gods . 

. they  drank . 

B.  BILINGUAL  BABYLONIAN  STORY  OF  CREATION^ 

The  holy  house,  the  house  of  the  gods,  in  the  holy  place,  was  not  made. 

The  reed  had  not  come  up;  the  tree  was  not  created. 

A  brick  was  not  made;  the  mould  was  not  fashioned. 

A  house  was  not  made;  the  city  was  not  built. 

5  A  city  was  not  made;  a  creature  was  not  constituted. 

2  For  the  text  see  CT  13,  35  ff .  It  was  first  translated  by  Pinches,  JRAS  23, 
393  ff.  See  also  Sayce,  Higher  Criticism  and  the  Monuments  p.  39;  Zimmern  in 
Gunkel,  Schopfung  und  Chaos  419  f;  Jensen,  KB  6,  38  f;  King,  Seven  Tablets  of 
Creation  130  ff;  Dhorme,  Choix  de  Textes  Religieux  Assyro-Bahyloniens  83  ff;  Rogers, 
Cuneiform  Parallels  47  ff ;  Jeremias,  Altorientalischen  Geisteskultur  p.  24;  Jastrow, 
JAOS  36,  280 ff;  Budge,  The  Babylonian  Legends  of  Creation  5ff;  Ungnad,  Die 
Religion  der  Babylonier  und  Assyrer  52  ff,  etc. 


214 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


Nippur  was  not  made;  Ekur  was  not  built. 

Erech  was  not  made;  E-anna  was  not  built. 

The  apsu  was  not  made;  Eridu  was  not  built. 

The  holy  house,  the  house  of  the  gods,  his  habitation,  was  not  made. 
10  All  lands  were  sea. 

Then,  what  was  in  the  midst  of  the  sea  was  squeezed  out. 

At  that  time,  Eridu  was  made,  Esagila  was  built. 

The  temple _ where  in  the  aj)su  Lugal-du-azag  had  dwelt, 

Babylon  was  made;  Esagila  was  finished. 

15  The  gods,  the  Anunnaki,  altogether,  he  made. 

The  holy  city,  the  dwelling  of  their  hearts’  desire,  they  proclaimed 
supreme, 

Marduk  laid  a  reed  work  upon  the  face  of  the  waters. 

He  created  dirt,  and  poured  (it)  with  the  reed-work. 

To  have  the  gods  dwell  in  a  desired  habitation, 

20  He  created  mankind. 

The  goddess  Aruru  with  him  created  the  seed  of  mankind. 

The  beast  of  the  field,  the  living  things  in  the  field,  he  created, 

The  Tigris  and  Euphrates,  he  created  and  fixed  (their)  course; 

Their  names  he  appropriately  announced. 

25  The  grass,  the  rush  of  the  marsh,  the  reed,  and  the  forest,  he  created. 
The  green  herb  of  the  field,  he  created. 

The  lands,  the  marsh,  the  swamp. 

The  cow,  her  offspring,  the  young,  the  ewe,  her  kid,  the  sheep  of  the  fold, 
Groves  and  forests, 

30  The  he-goat,  the  mountain-goat,  he  brought  into  existence. 

The  lord  Marduk  filled  in  an  embankment  at  the  edge  of  the  sea. 

. a  secure  place  he  established. 

. he  caused  to  exist. 

. wood  he  created. 

35  . in  the  place  he  created. 

. (the  mould)  he  created. 


[he  established. 
E-kur,  he  created. 
. . .  he  created. 


APPENDICES. 


215 


C.  THE  PHOENICIAN  COSMOGONY  ASCRIBED  TO 
SANCHUNIATHON  BY  PHILO  OF  BYBLUS* 

As  the  first  principle  of  the  universe  he  posits  murky,  windy  air,  or  a 
breath  of  murky  air,  and  turbid  chaos,  dark  as  Erebos;  these  were  infinite 
and  throughout  a  long  lapse  of  time  limitless.  “But,’’  says  he,  “when 
the  windy  breath  became  enamoured  of  its  own  first  principles  and  an 
intermingling  took  place,  that  union  was  called  Desire.  This  was  the 
beginning  of  the  creation  of  all  things;  but  it  was  not  aware  of  its  own 
creation.  From  the  self-embrace  of  the  windy  breath  was  engendered 
Mot;  this  some  say  was  mud,  others  the  corruption  of  a  watery  mixture. 
From  this  was  engendered  all  seed  of  creation,  and  the  origin  of  the  universe. 
There  were  certain  beings  devoid  of  sense-perception,  out  of  which  were 
engendered  sentient  beings;  and  they  were  called  Zophasemin,  that  is, 
beholders  of  Heaven,  and  were  fashioned  like  the  shape  of  an  egg.  And 
Mot  was  illumined^  by  the  sun  and  moon,  and  by  the  stars  and  the  great 
stellar  bodies.”® 

Such  is  their  cosmogony,  which  brings  in  downright  atheism.  But  let 
us  next  see  how  he  says  the  origin  of  life  came  about.  He  says,  then: 

“And  after  the  air  had  become  glowing,  through  the  burning  of  the  sea 
and  the  earth  were  engendered  winds  and  clouds,  and  very  great  down¬ 
falls  and  outpourings  of  heavenly  waters.  When  these  had  become  dis¬ 
joined  from  each  other  and  disparted  from  their  own  place  through  the 
burning  heat  of  the  sun,  and  when  they  all  encountered  again  in  the  air, 
one  with  another,  and  collided,  claps  of  thunder  and  bolts  of  lightning 
were  created.  At  the  noise  of  the  thunder-claps,  the  previously  men¬ 
tioned  sentient  beings  awoke,  and  started  at  the  sound,  and  moved  upon 
the  earth  and  in  the  sea,  male  and  female.” 

Such  is  their  view  of  the  origin  of  life.  Directly  after  this  the  same 
writer  adds  the  remark: 

“All  this  was  found  written  in  the  cosmogony  of  Taautos  and  his  com¬ 
mentaries;  by  means  of  indications  and  proofs  which  his  intelligence  had 
discerned,  he  discovered  it  and  enlightened  us.” 

3  These  quotations,  from  the  first  book  of  the  Phoenician  History  of  Philo  of 
Byblus,  are  given  by  Eusebius,  Praeparatio  Evangelica,  i,  10.  The  translation, 
which  has  been  made  by  my  colleague.  Professor  A.  M.  Harmon,  follows  the  text 
of  Muller,  Fragmenta  Historicorum  Graecorum,  iii,  p.  565.  The  interspersed  com¬ 
ments  are  those  of  Eusebius. 

*  Or,  “set  aflame.” 

The  five  planets. 


216 


THE  OEIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TKADITIONS. 


D.  STORY  OF  CREATION  ASCRIBED  TO  OANNES  BY 

BEROSSUS® 

“There  was,”  he  says,  “a  time  when  everything  was  darkness  and 
water,  and  in  these  were  bred  portentous  creatures  with  peculiar  appear¬ 
ances;  for  men  with  two  wings  were  born,  and  some,  too,  with  four  wings 
and  two  faces;  they  had  only  one  body,  but  two  heads,  a  man^s  and  a 
woman’s  also,  and  double  privates,  male  and  female.  And  there  were 
other  men,  some  of  whom  had  goat’s  legs  and  horns,  some  had  horse’s 
hooves,  and  some  had  the  hinder  parts  of  horses  and  the  fore  parts  of  men, 
so  as  to  look  like  hippocentaurs.  Bulls  with  human  heads  were  bred, 
too,  and  four-bodied  dogs,  with  fish-tails  attached  to  their  hind  quarters, 
and  horses  and  men  with  the  heads  of  dogs,  and  other  creatures  that  had 
the  heads  and  bodies  of  horses  but  the  tails  of  fish,  and  still  other  creatures 
with  the  shapes  of  all  manner  of  beasts.  In  addition  to  these,  there  were 
fish  and  creeping  things  and  serpents  and  many  other  marvellous  creatures 
that  had  appearances  derived  from  one  another.  Images  of  all  these  are 
set  up  as  offerings  in  the  temple  of  Bel.  The  ruler  of  them  all  was  a 
woman  whose  name  was  Omorka,  which  in  Chaldean  is  interpreted 
Thalatth,  and  in  Greek  Thalassa  (sea);  but  by  numerical  equivalence 
(it  is)  Selene  (the  moon).^ 

“After  the  universe  had  thus  come  into  being,  Belos  made  his  appear¬ 
ance  and  clove  the  woman  in  two;  he  made  half  of  her  Earth  and  the 
other  half  Heaven,  and  did  away  with  the  creatures  in  her.  This,  he  says, 
is  a  physical  truth  allegorically  set  forth;  for  when  the  universe  was 
liquid  and  only  animals  had  come  into  being  in  it,  [this  god  removed  his 
own  head,  and  the  other  gods  mixed  with  earth  the  blood  that  flowed  and 
moulded  men;  hence  they  are  intelligent  and  partake  of  divine  wisdom]® 

®  For  the  text  see  Schoene,  Eusehi  Chronicorum  Liber  Prior  pp.  14-18.  It  may 
also  be  found  in  Muller,  Fragm.  Hist.  Graec.  ii.  pp.  497-498.  The  translation  and 
notes  are  by  Professor  A.  M.  Harmon,  of  Yale  University. 

^  The  two  words  Omorka  and  Selene  not  only  have  the  same  number  of  letters, 
but  if  the  letters  are  given  their  numerical  value,  according  to  the  Greek  system, 
the  sum  of  the  letters  in  Omorka  (301)  is  the  same  as  the  sum  of  the  letters  in 
Selene. 

®  I  have  bracketed  these  words  following  Gudschmid,  and  on  my  own  responsi¬ 
bility  have  indicated  a  lacuna  between  what  precedes  them  and  what  follows. 
The  bracketed  passage  interrupts  the  rationalistic  explanation  of  the  myth,  and  is 
evidently  a  double  of  the  continuation  of  the  myth  itself.  Out  of  the  interpreta¬ 
tion  of  the  myth  we  have  lost  at  least  the  explanation  that  Belos  is  light  (A.  M.  H.). 


APPENDICES. 


217 


. but  Belos,  whom  they  interpret  to  be  Zeus,  sundered  the  darkness 

in  twain,  disparted  Heaven  and  earth  from  each  other,  and  established  the 
world-order;  and  the  animals,  not  being  able  to  endure  the  strength  of  the 
hght,  perished.  When  he  saw  land  unoccupied  and  fruitful,  Belos  ordered 
one  of  the  gods  to  take  off  his  head,  to  mix  earth  with  the  blood  that 
flowed  from  it,  and  to  mould  men  and  beasts  that  could  endure  the  air.® 
Belos  created  also  the  stars  and  the  sun  and  moon  and  the  five  planets.” 
All  this,  says  Alexander  Polyhistor,  Berossus  asserts  in  his  first  book. 

E.  DAMASCIUS  ON  THE  THEOGONY  OF  THE  BABYLONIANS!® 

Among  the  Barbarians,  it  would  appear  that  as  far  as  the  Babylonians 
are  concerned  they  have  passed  over  in  silence  one  of  the  three  first  prin¬ 
ciples  of  the  universe!!  and  have  made  two,  Tauthe  and  Apason,  making 
Apason  the  husband  of  Tauthe,  and  naming  her  the  mother  of  the  gods. 
Of  these  a  single  son  was  born,  Moymis — the  visible  world  itself,  I  take 
it,  derived  from  their  two  first  principles.!^  But  other  issue  came  from  the 
same  parents,  Daches  and  Dachos,  and  then  again  a  third,  Kissare  and 
Assoros.  Of  these  two  were  born  three  children,  Anos,  Illinos,  and  Aos; 
and  the  son  of  Aos  and  Dauke  was  Belos,  who  they  say  is  the  Creator.” 

®  7.  e.,  the  light  of  day. 

10  Damascius,  Ed.  Kopp,  p.  384.  It  is  supposed  to  have  been  handed  down  by 
Eudemus  of  Rhodes.  The  translation  and  notes  are  also  by  Professor  Harmon. 

11  Damascius  is  an  ardent  Neo-Platonist;  he  finds  triads  if  he  can. 

12  This  may  be  pure  conjecture  on  the  part  of  Damascius. 


INDEX. 


"dbaru,  183 
db-ba-tu,  105 
Abesha,  39 
Abraham,  42,  56 
abUbu,  155 
Abushir,  34 
Adad,  50  f 
Adam,  125 
adamah,  106 
Adamu,  109 
Adapa,  109 
a-da-pa{d)f  109 
Adgi,  59 
Adon,  55 

Agum-kakrime,  98 
Ahmose  I,  35 
Akkadu,  13,  190 
Aku-Ea,  103 
Aku-ilum,  103 
[A]-ldUgdr,  127,  132 
^Alaparos,  131 
Alap-Uru,  132 
Aleppo,  26,  38,  50 
alirriy  127 
Almelon,  132 
^Aloros,  129 
Amarna  letters,  44 
amarUy  154 
Amelalarus,  135 
Amel-Anu,  133 
Amel-Enlil,  166 
^Amelon,  132 
Amel-Sin,  136 
amUu,  132 
Amel-Uru,  133 
^Amempsinos,  136 
Amen,  56 
Amen-Re,  35 
^Amillaros,  132 
Aminon,  134 
*ammdl,  134 
ammatum,  105 
’Ammen-Anu,  134 
^Ammenon,  133 
Ammi-zaduga,  163 
ammothy  106 


Amori,  130 
Amoriah,  130 
Amur,  130 
'Ana,  54,  100 
Anamentos,  133 
ana  pattSy  184 
'Aner,  53 
An-na,  144 
Annadotos,  133,  137 
^Anodaphos,  133 
Anoth,  53 
An-ram,  53 
Anshar,  98 
an-shuy  137 
Antu,  53 
Anu,  99 
'apar,  106 
'Apop,  40 
apsHy  71,  79 
Arabia,  19 
Arady  128 
Arad-giUy  128 
Arattiy  128 
Ar-da-tay  137 
^Ardatas,  128,  136 
Ariy  137 
Arphaxad,  43 
Aruru,  130 
Ashdar,  53 

Ashirta,  26,  28, 41,  52,  59 
Assoros,  217 
Ashirta- washur,  47 
Astarte,  40 
Atanakh-El,  46 
Athothis,  34 
Atra-khasis,  167  f 

atrUy  168 

Attar,  55,  59 
Au-shezib,  168 
Awur,  130 
Ba'al,  40 
Bab-El,  58,  101 
Bashan,  35 
Beirut,  49,  78,  157 
Belos,  217 
Beth  ^Aniy  53 

(219) 


Beth-Lekhem,  98 
Bit-^Nin-IB,  54 

bubbuluy  206 

Buzur-Amurru,  169 
Byblos,  34,  38,  100 
Cain,  134 
Chedorlaomer,  41 
Ctesiphon,  190 
Cutha,  59 
Dadda,  51 
Dagon,  51 
Damascius,  217 
Dan~AnUy  135 
Daonos,  135 
Daos,  135 
Dauke,  217 
Da(v)onus,  135 
Der,  101 
Desius,  156 
Dilmun,  148 
Dhr-El,  58,  101 
Dhr  Tibiri,  126 
Ea,  59 
E-Anna,  101 
Ea-sharri,  103 
'Ebhedy  136 
Eden,  168 
Edoranchus,  135 
El,  58,  99 
Elam,  12 
El-da~tay  137 
^El  'elydUy  101 
El-muti,  58 
El-Or,  131 
Enbi-Ashdar,  57 
Engidu,  26 
En-Kiy  102 
En-me-dur-an-kiy  135, 
139 

En-me-dur-an-nay  127, 
128 

Enmeirgan,  135 
Enmenunna,  133 
Enoch,  140,  143 
Enosh,  133 
enshu,  133 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  BIBLICAL  TRADITIONS. 


220 

En-Urta,  54,  154 
^epes,  79 

Esagila,  189,  208 
Eshdar,  53 
Etana,  135 
E-temen-an-ki,  189 
Euedorakhos,  135,  140 
Euedoreskhos,  135 
Euhemerism,  27 
*Eved-Or,  136 
Eved-Ur  akh,  143 
'Evvedj  136 
Gaga,  104 
gamdrUy  117 
Gezer,  46 
ghabaTj  106 
Gilgamesh,  27,  52 
giparttj  106 
giparrUy  71 
Gir,  59 

gish-gi-tug-giy  113 
Gish-May  177 
gishtUy  210 
gi-Hsh-dUy  114 
Gudea,  41,  155,  171 
Hadad,  50 
Haifa,  78 
hamah,  88 
hamarriy  88 
Haran,  168 

heqiniy  86 

Heshbon,  52 
Hierapolis,  63 
Hit,  164 
Homer,  92 
Horos,  100 
Mw,l88 
Humba,  62 

Humbaba,  12,  28,  41,  57, 
62 

Humman,  62 
Huwawa,  63 
ihharay  183 
ihhUy  119 
Ibi-Sin,  25 
Idin-Dagan,  23 
Idin-Kakka,  104 
Ilu,  173,  175 
Ininna,  172 


iq-ta-ah-ta,  174 
^Irad,  137 
Isar-Shamash,  11 
ishy  133 
Ishbi-Urra,  23 
Ishdar,  53 
Ishtar,  53 
Ishu-El,  58 
Isis,  40 
ittakhdavy  175 
itti-shUy  185 
Jacob,  36,  39,  49 
Jared,  137 
kainayay  134 
Kannu,  168 
karrUy  195 
Kenan,  134 
kha-aja-al-tiy  187 
Khabsim,  46 
Khabur,  126 
Khana,  100 
Khandy,  39 
Khani,  50,  59 
Khanish,  171 
khaparUy  106 
khdrdshy  134 
khasasu,  168 
kheheTy  95 

khihishy  180 

khitpiy  121 

khubuTy  95 
kin-guhy  113 
Kirjath-arba,  56 
Kish,  190 
Kishar,  98 
Kissare,  217 

Kronos,  69,  99,  104,  156, 
175 

Kulla,  82 
Kur-Gal,  21,  169 
la-aUy  187 
Labbu,  89 
Lakhamu,  97 
Lakhmu,  97 
Lal-ur-alim-ma,  130 
Lamech,  137 
Laonus,  135 
Larak,  126 
Larsa,  126 


la-shUy  185 
li-e-ir-riy  181 
limtanniy  181 
lishaqtily  178 
lishazniriy  182 
lissakirdy  180 

li^zUy  174 
Vd-an-nay  127,  135 
Lucian,  63 
Ld-En-lil-ldy  166 
Lugal-Marad,  26,  28,  41 
Lugal-zaggisi,  41,  171 

lumashuy  206 

lumkha,  129 
7  WTy  131 
mahbulj  188 
md-gur-guTy  165 
Mahalal-El,  129,  135 
Malik,  55 
maqqely  135 
Mar,  131 
Marduk,  99,  103 
Mari,  12,  25,  43,  57,  100, 
131 

Mar-Tu,  22 
mashd^y  205 
ma^^ehdhy  46 
Megal,  135 
Megalanos,  135 
Megal-Anu,  135 
Megalaros,  135 
Megiddo,  48 
nfhdmahy  94 
mekhd  ahdhUy  155 
mUuy  156 
Merneptah,  35 
meihy  133 

Methu-sha-El,  143 
Moriah,  130 
Moses,  37 
Mot,  215 

Mount  Hermon,  157 
Moymis,  217 
Mugheir,  43 
Mummu,  93 
Murashh,  21 
Mutesellim,  48 
Mutu-sha-Arkhi,  136 
Mycerinus,  34 


INDEX. 


221 


[na]-aq-hi-ra^  181 
na-a-shi,  187 
Nabti,  171 
Naram-Sin,  41 
Nebo,  52,  59 
Nebuchadnezzar,  141 
Necho,  35 
Neptune,  84 
Ne-Uru-Galj  47,  59 
Nih-IB,  22 
Nikkal,  40 
Nin-Gish-Zidda,  90 
Nisaba,  50,  59,  171 
nishitu,  176 
^nwsht,  22 
Ogenes,  104 
^ommarij  134 
Omorka,  216 
’opes,  80 
Ophioneus,  104 
Osiris,  4Q,  100 
’Otiartas,  136 
pala^  203 

Pantibiblos,  128,  144 
pekhahj  187 
Pherecydes,  104 
Philo,  215 
Phiops  I,  34 
pihhibj  — 

Pilikam,  134 
Pir’-^^Amurru,  131 
Poseidon,  83 
pr  wTj  131 
pukhrUj  95 
Qedesh,  40 

qirUj  186 

quffahy  164 
rahat,  85 
rain,'  77,  155 
Rameses  II,  49,  53 
Ramku,  137 
ratah,  85 
rdtu,  85 
ratHma,  85 
Resheph,  40 
Re’u,  135 

rigmUj  106 

Rim-Sin,  90 
sag-zi,  144 


Sahure,  34 
Samaria,  42 
Sargon  II,  42 
seh,  179 
Sekmen,  35 
Selucia,  190 
Sennacherib,  90 
§enu,  179 

Serabit  el-Khadim,  161 
107 

Sesostris  I,  35 

Sesostris  III,  39 

Seti  I,  53 

shah"  at,  123 

shahattu,  117 

Shalman,  40 

Shalmaneser  III,  49 

Shamshi-Adad  I,  41 

shapattu,  117,  206 

Sharru,  59,  154,  171,  210 

shdshu,  82 

Sheshonk,  35 

shita,  86 

shitta,  174 

shu,  179 

Shullat,  171 

Sibi,  209 

sih-zi-an-na,  127 

Sinuhe,  35 

Sippar,  126,  128,  140 
§tru,  89 
Snefru,  34 
Subartu,  12 
Su'-kur-Lam,  127 
^u^d,  107 

su-us-su-ul-lu,  187 
Taautos,  100,  215 
Ta'anach,  47 
ta-ma-tu,  87 

Tammuz,  41,  52,  90,  110 

tannim,  67 

te-u-u-tu,  178 

tehah,  188 

t^hdm,  88 

te-i-na,  176 

Terah,  42 

teraphim,  141 

Thalatth,  216 

Thutmose  I, II  and  III,  35 


tidmat,  87 
ti-amat,  87 

Tiglathpileser  III,  179 
tihdmat,  88 
Tishpak,  89 
ti-ta,  176 

Uhar-Tu-Tu,  128,  136 

Uhur-Tu-Tu,  128 

ukkin,  165 

Umba,  62 

ummanu,  133 

Ummu  khuhur,  94 

tTm-napishtim-rhqu,  167 

{tin  ndkh  lihhi,  118 

dmu,  186 

Unas,  34 

Uni,  34 

u-pa-az-zi-ru,  187 
’Ur,  22 
Urbel,  43 
Urbillu,  43 
UR-En-Urta,  23 
’Ur  Kasdim,  43 
Urra,  47,  59 
Urra-Gal,  47,  59 
Urra-imitti,  23 
Ur-salimmu,  54 
Urta,  23,  59 
Uru,  62 
Uru-salim,  54 
u^amma,  174 
U-ta-na-ish-tim,  167 
Ut-napishti-[arik],  167 
Uzi-watar,  58 
Varuna,  84 
Wenamon,  35 
Wer,  131 

’w,  21,  43,  62,  137 
Xisuthros,  137 
Yahweh,  20 
yarat,  85 
zdbu,  79 
Zakar,  131,  179 
Zarpanit,  118 
Zeus,  100 
Zi-mutar,  58 
Zi-tl(d)-suddu,'167 
Zophasemin,  215 
Zu,  12,  25 


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ADDENDA 


The  signs  from  the  text  published  in  A  Hebrew  Deluge  Story,  which 
Luckenbill,  one  of  my  former  pupils,  has  declared  were  misread  (see  AJSL 
39,  153),  are  placed  at  the  top  of  each  column,  beneath  which  are  given 
other  examples  of  the  same  sign  (if  they  occur),  on  which  there  is  no  question 
as  to  the  reading.  Although  all  experts  know  that  the  eye  can  see  and  the 
camera  will  reproduce  wedges,  when  the  light  is  thrown  from  a  different 
angle,  which  in  some  instances  are  not  clearly  visible  in  a  single  photograph, 
nevertheless  I  have  used  the  same  photograph,  but  enlarged,  which  was 
previously  published,  so  that,  without  a  glass,  anyone,  including  even 


i  9  ^4 

1^3 

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those  who  have  not  studied  cuneiform  palaeography,  may  judge  for  him¬ 
self  whether  my  readings  are  ^^misreadings,’’  and  whether  they  ^Tade  into 
thin  air.” 

No.  1  is  akh  from  it-ta-akh-da-ar ,  line  4,  which  Luckenbill  declares  is 
see  No.  2. 

No.  2  is  ’  from  li--zu,  line  10;  but  all  the  wedges  are  not  visible  in  the 
photograph.  This  he  has  read  shi,  i.  e..  No.  3.  Note  the  oblique  instead 
of  horizontal  wedge. 

No.  3  is  shi  for  comparison  with  ’,  i.  e..  No.  2. 

No.  4  is  na  of  te-i-na,  line  9,  which  he  has  read  ta,  for  which  see  No.  5. 

(223) 


224 


ADDENDA. 


No.  5  is  ta  for  comparison  with  na,  i.  e.,  No.  4. 

No.  6  is  ti  from  li-sha-aq-ti-il,  line  11,  which  he  has  read  qi;  see  No.  7. 

No.  7  is  for  comparison  with  ti,  i.  e.,  No.  6. 

No.  8  is  from  li-sha-aq-ti-il,  line  11,  which  he  has  read  ra;  see  No.  9. 

No.  9  is  ra  for  comparison  with  il,  i.  e..  No.  8. 

No.  10  is  ih  from  ib-ha-ra,  line  70,  which  he  has  read  dib;  see  No.  11. 

No.  11  is  dib  (lu),  for  comparison  with  ib.,  i.  e..  No.  10. 

No.  12  is  ti  fiom  .  .  .  line  10,  which  he  says  may  ^^have  the  rem¬ 
nants  of  s/if  but  for  which  see  No.  3. 

No.  13  is  khi-bi-ish,  line  12,  which  is  from  the  photograph  published 
by  Johns,  Cuneiform  Inscriptions,  p.  11,  because  through  an  injury  to  the 
tablet  the  word  is  no  longer  preserved.  In  spite  not  only  of  this  photogiaph 
but  ScheiPs  clear  copy  {RT  20,  56),  Luckenbill  says,  ^‘it  is  evident  the 
khibish  of  Professor  Clay  and  others  is  a  misreading  of  the  remnants  of 
shaplish’’;  but  see  No.  14. 

No.  14  is  sha-ap-li-ish  made  up  from  other  lines  for  comparison  with 
khi-bi-ish,  i.  e..  No.  13. 

The  answer  to  his  other  strictures  of  my  work  will  be  found  on  pages 
96^b  174^^’  38a, 38b  ^  178^^,  179,  180^®,  and  183^^.  An  examination  of  all  these 

facts,  it  is  believed,  is  sufficient  to  convince  anyone  competent  to  weigh 
the  evidence  that  his  criticisms,  presented  in  such  an  aggressive  tone,  with 
the  exception  of  one  or  two  things  previously  noted  by  others,  are  without 
foundation. 


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